Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
This red is stitched with strawberry, cherry, currant and eucalyptus flavors. Firm, with a fine line of dense tannins informing the finish. Balanced and long overall, with flashes of tobacco and mineral sapidity on the finish.
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Decanter
Despite a stern finish due to chalky, slightly dry tannins, this Barolo from Serralunga is delicious and with a very good quality price ratio. Classic sweet violets and fresh strawberries on the nose are allied to a full body and crisp acidity, with an austere finish now that may soften a bit with bottle ageing. Indeed, the wine was aged for 24 months in big oak casks so it deserves patience.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2019 Barolo Del Comune Di Serralunga D'Alba is spicy and contemplative, with licorice, leather, sage, and cherry. It is medium to full-bodied, with good structure, and is balanced and savory. Ripe raspberry, dried apricot, and tea leaf are persistent with ample tannins and fresh acidity. It offers a lot of classic appeal and is worthy of cellaring a few more years. Best after 2025.
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.