Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Enticing scents of red berry, rose petal, pipe tobacco and white pepper pave the way. The succulent, elegant palate offers cranberry, juicy red cherry, star anise and a touch of orange zest framed in fine-grained tannins and vibrant acidity. Drink 2022–2032.
Cellar Selection -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Barolo Serradenari (with 6,000 bottles made) offers robust intensity with dark tones of black fruit, tar, smoke and ash. This wine, with fruit from La Morra, offers dark and savory characteristics that give this Barolo a much deeper and more profound center of gravity. You could imagine a pairing with game meat or roasted pork. In terms of mouthfeel, the wine is streamlined and tight, but don't underestimate its lasting power.
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Wine & Spirits
The fruit for this wine comes from a southwestern-facing slope in La Morra’s Serradenari cru that rises up to 1,700 feet above sea level. You can feel the coolness of the elevation in the wine’s high-toned scents of flowers and orange peel, as well as in the vibrancy of its cherry and red-currant flavors. Brisk and lively, almost delicate for a Barolo, it would pair well with lighter pasta and poultry dishes.
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.