Winemaker Notes
Garnet red with orange-colored highlights. On the nose, it is complex, very fruity, elegant, intense, spicy, with flowery touches. Excellent body with power and stuffing. Demanding, masculine, long and full.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This wine is full of surprises. From a hot vintage, the Giuseppe Mascarello 2017 Barolo Monprivato is unexpectedly floral, initially, more than it is fruity. Indeed. it shows hardly any sign of the challenges associated with a very dry summer season. Nebbiolo maintains its balance and freshness with an interlude of wild rose and lilac that moves progressively toward cassis, wild cherry and raspberry. The fruit is framed by savory notes of tobacco, rust and autumnal leaf. An elegant mineral note also appears.
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Wine Spectator
Though firm, this has a beam of cherry, raspberry, floral and mineral aromas and flavors. Linear, elegant and balanced, but will need more time to fully open and reveal all the facets. Fine ripeness, freshness and vibrant fruit on the long finish. Best from 2025
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.