Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Subtle and refined with dried strawberries, flowers, cream and cedar. Medium body. Fine, creamy tannins and a flavorful finish. The tannins melt into the wine nicely. Drink in 2024.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
With fruit from old, southeast-facing vines, the Poderi Luigi Einaudi 2017 Barolo Terlo Vigna Costa Grimaldi shows very nicely in this hot vintage. The positioning of the vines and the age of the deeply furrowed roots surely play a big role toward achieving the balance and pretty intensity offered here. The wine is streamlined and tight, with no loose ends, held firmly together by fresh Nebbiolo acidity and well-managed tannins. There is a lot of power built up in this Terlo fruit, but the wine also reveals austerity and sharp lines. This wine is more about structure than it is fruit, and with an ample 11,266 bottles made, you can put a few of those aside for extra cellar aging.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Vigna Costa Grimaldi lies within the Terlo MGA at the southern boundary of the Barolo commune, bordering Novello. The 2017 Barolo Terlo Vigna Costa Grimaldi leads with anise aromas, dried porcini, and red currant. There is freshness within the core of ripe fruit and ripe, angular tannins, noted by burnt orange peel, dried cherry, and tea leaf. Drink 2024-2038.
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Wine Enthusiast
Ripe black-skinned berry, underbrush and new leather aromas take shape in the glass. The ripe, savory palate features dried black cherry, white pepper and star anise alongside a backbone of fine-grained tannins. Drink 2023–2032.
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Wine & Spirits
From a plot of southeast-facing vines in Barolo’s Terlo cru, this wine bursts with flavors of red cherry and brambly raspberry that verge on sweetness. Firm, mineral tannins underline the rich fruit, lending a cool, polished feel to the smooth texture.
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Wine Spectator
The smooth texture and steeped cherry and plum flavors bode well for this red, as eucalyptus, hay, tobacco and iron elements add depth. Firm, with ample fruit, a well-integrated structure and lingering finish. Best from 2024 through 2043.
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.