Winemaker Notes
Pairs well with starters and first courses like pasta, risotto and soup. Great with vegetable or meat salads, pasta with or without tomato or ragout.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Bright and juicy, displaying pure cherry, blackberry and floral aromas and flavors. The vintage's dense tannins are present but well-integrated. Fine length. Drink now through 2024.
An easy drinking red with soft fruity flavors—but catchy tannins, Dolcetto is often enjoyed in its native Piedmont on a casual weekday night, or for apertivo (the canonical Piedmontese pre-dinner appetizer hour). Somm Secret—In most of Piedmont, easy-ripening Dolcetto is relegated to the secondary sites—the best of which are reserved for the king variety: Nebbiolo. However, in the Dogliani zone it is the star of the show, and makes a more serious style of Dolcetto, many of which can improve with cellar time.
The hills of Dogliani, just to the south of the Barolo zone, produce the very best Dolcetto wines in the world. Its rolling hills reach higher elevations than those of Barolo and the area maintains strong Dolcetto vineyards as well as groves of hazelnut trees, farmland, pastures, and forests. Dogliani became its own DOCG in 2005; in order for a Dolcetto to be classified as Dogliani DOCG, it must come from one of the following communes: Bastia Mondovì, Belvedere Langhe, Clavesana, Cigliè, Dogliani, Farigliano, Monchiero, Rocca Cigliè, Roddino and Somano. Dogliani DOCG must have a deep red color, elegance, intense fruit, and aromas of currants, raspberry, and blackberry.