Winemaker Notes
A versatile, all-around food wine, can stand up to structured first courses and meat dishes.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
This is polished and opulent, with a well of plum, blackberry, mineral and spice aromas and flavors. Broad and open, yet with a firm grip of tannins lurking behind the fruit. Best from 2018 through 2024.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Dogliani Superiore Vigna Tecc is true to the variety in terms of its darkness and its succulent intensity. On the other hand, it offers a level of elegance and austerity that you would not immediately associate with this native grape of Piedmont. There are dark layers of crème de cassis, crushed mineral, black olive and cured tobacco. This is an inspirational interpretation of a grape that is normally related to a no-fuss, easy-drinking corner of wine styles. But you get more than that here.
Rating: 90+
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.