Winemaker Notes
Deep ruby color, Cerretta is a high structure and powerful Barolo, rich in red fruits that integrate perfectly with the powerful but never hefty tannins. The bouquet opens to red and dark fruit, balsamic notes and mineral nuances of iron. Chalky texture, iodine, Darjeeling black tea and baking spice will embrace your palate, with a lengthy fresh finish of mint and rosemary.
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Giuseppe Vaira, who has an impressive set of 2015 releases under his family’s G.D. Vajra label, is also the winemaker at Luigi Baudana. The Vaira family took over management of this tiny Serralunga estate in 2009 and converted its 6.4 vineyard acres to organic farming practices. The 2015 Cerretta feels rich and autumnal, the deep black-cherry flavors layered with notes of apple skin and warm spice and firm, fine-grained tannins.
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Wine Spectator
Ripe and juicy, displaying macerated cherry and plum flavors, complemented by menthol and rosemary notes. A line of mineral underscores all the elements, revealing a dense matrix of fine tannins on the finish. Best from 2023 through 2042.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Barolo Cerretta offers a slightly richer and textured expression from Serralunga d'Alba fruit. The wine is slightly riper compared to the Barolo Baudana from the same vintage, with dark fruit aromas of wild cherry, rose, cola and tilled earth. The wine is similarly tight and firm at its core; however, this Nebbiolo from the Cerretta vineyard offers more succulent padding and volume.
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Wine Enthusiast
Underbrush, blue flower and menthol aromas form the nose along with a whiff of leather. The palate is still youthfully austere, offering dried cherry, cranberry, wild herbs and tobacco set against a backbone of assertive, noble tannins and bright acidity. Give this time to fully develop. Drink 2025–2035.
Luigi Baudana is one of the last garagiste estates in Langhe. With just 4 quality hectares, located in some of the most prestigious Barolo crus in Serralunga d'Alba. The wines of the Luigi Baudana collection are an expression of powerful, genuine and true-to-terroir wines, expressing the best of the Nebbiolo grape.
The origin of the cellar is lost in time: Baudana is the name of the family, but it is also the name of the vineyard and of the hamlet of Serralunga d'Alba, where the winery is located.
For over thirty years, Luigi and Fiorina Baudana have grown the vineyards that have belonged to their family for generations. They cared for their vineyards with the same tenderness of their own love and with the same warmth emanating from their cellar, born under the vaults of their home.
From the very beginning, the Vaira family have been impressed by Luigi and Fiorina's ambition, as well as pride in their work. Their mission every day is for Luigi and Fiorina to be proud of the vineyards and of the wines, whilst perpetuating their gestures and seeking for the authenticity of every single vineyard.
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.