Winemaker Notes
Intense ruby red color with orange reflections. Elegant and harmonious on the nose, persistent fruit notes with velvety tannins. Warm, full-bodied, well-balanced palate with long and intense finish.
This wine is excellent with red meat, wild game and seasoned cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A beautiful, subtle red with plum and berry character and hints of cedar and earth. Medium to full body with round, creamy tannins and a seductive finish. Really fine and well crafted. Drink after 2022.
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Decanter
Livia Fontana, aided by her two sons, produces Barolo from Bussia in Monforte, and also this Villero from Castiglione Falletto. The prettiness of the nose, with its fragrant rose and raspberry aromas, is often typical of Villero, which has fairly sandy soils. It's intense and very fresh, showing mellow tannins and a distinct pungency because of its rather fierce acidity. It's quite long but it shows limited complexity at present. Drinking Window 2020 - 2032
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Wine Enthusiast
Underbrush, toasted hazelnut and scorched earth aromas mingle with a camphor note. The concentrated full-bodied palate shows fleshy black cherry, licorice and coffee bean framed in taut, velvety tannins. Drink 2022–2028.
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.