Winemaker Notes
Deliciously approachable thanks to its purity of fruit and plush tannin. A splash from the nearby Brunate cru adds a luxurious layer of depth. Pleasure and pedigree—your taste buds will be flattered.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Giulia Negri 2015 Barolo La Tartufaia is a full and generous expression of Nebbiolo with round and ripe flavors of wild berry, redcurrant, spice, tar, rose and potting soil. This wine presents an easy and accessible approach with nicely integrated tannins and enough acidity to keep the palate refreshed. Maybe it is the power of suggestion, but I also get a hint of black truffle in La Tartufaia.
Rating: 92+ -
Wine Enthusiast
This opens with aromas of violet, red berry and underbrush. The savory, balanced palate delivers red cherry, tobacco and a touch of nutmeg alongside firm but polished tannins and fresh acidity. Drink 2022–2030.
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Wine & Spirits
Negri named this wine after the truffle fields her grandfather planted before she replaced them with vineyards. She pulls it from the estate’s high-elevation plots in the Serradenari cru, and ages the wine for two years in large Slavonian casks. With pure red-cherry flavors, lifted rose scents and a fine, filigreed structure, it is an appealing choice for restaurants that can pour Barolo by the glass. Best Buy
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.