Winemaker Notes
Its extraordinary color – an intense ruby-red tinged with garnet shades – shows the wine's youth, not yet ripe after the first years of maturation. Transparent and brilliant, the beautiful legs and tears coursing the sides of the glass show both its generous alcoholic content and the abundant extractive compounds.
Its bouquet is frank, intense, full-bodied and complex. The perfume reminds mature fruit, cacao, noble woods, mint and sweet spices. At a first taste the sensation is of intense, pleasing and sweet warmness. Mature tannins match perfectly with the sapidity of this wine, making the Perno a noble, austere and full-body wine. The aging is one of the mainstays of this wine which gives its best when ripe.
The Perno is an extraordinary wine with great structure, balance and harmony and an amazing longevity.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Red-berry, truffle and crushed mint aromas follow through to the full-bodied palate along with tobacco notes. Tightly wound, grainy tannins lead to a firm drying finish. Drink after 2026.
Responsible for some of the most elegant and age-worthy wines in the world, Nebbiolo, named for the ubiquitous autumnal fog (called nebbia in Italian), is the star variety of northern Italy’s Piedmont region. Grown throughout the area, as well as in the neighboring Valle d’Aosta and Valtellina, it reaches its highest potential in the Piedmontese villages of Barolo, Barbaresco and Roero. Outside of Italy, growers are still very much in the experimentation stage but some success has been achieved in parts of California. Somm Secret—If you’re new to Nebbiolo, start with a charming, wallet-friendly, early-drinking Langhe Nebbiolo or Nebbiolo d'Alba.
The center of the production of the world’s most exclusive and age-worthy red wines made from Nebbiolo, the Barolo wine region includes five core townships: La Morra, Monforte d’Alba, Serralunga d’Alba, Castiglione Falletto and the Barolo village itself, as well as a few outlying villages. The landscape of Barolo, characterized by prominent and castle-topped hills, is full of history and romance centered on the Nebbiolo grape. Its wines, with the signature “tar and roses” aromas, have a deceptively light garnet color but full presence on the palate and plenty of tannins and acidity. In a well-made Barolo wine, one can expect to find complexity and good evolution with notes of, for example, strawberry, cherry, plum, leather, truffle, anise, fresh and dried herbs, tobacco and violets.
There are two predominant soil types here, which distinguish Barolo from the lesser surrounding areas. Compact and fertile Tortonian sandy marls define the vineyards farthest west and at higher elevations. Typically the Barolo wines coming from this side, from La Morra and Barolo, can be approachable relatively early on in their evolution and represent the “feminine” side of Barolo, often closer in style to Barbaresco with elegant perfume and fresh fruit.
On the eastern side of the Barolo wine region, Helvetian soils of compressed sandstone and chalks are less fertile, producing wines with intense body, power and structured tannins. This more “masculine” style comes from Monforte d’Alba and Serralunga d’Alba. The township of Castiglione Falletto covers a spine with both soil types.
The best Barolo wines need 10-15 years before they are ready to drink, and can further age for several decades.