Winemaker Notes
The wine has a garnet-color and ruby-red reflections with a slight orange note. The nose is ethereal, fresh, elegant and very persistent, with hints of violet, rose, licorice and sweet spices. In the mouth the flavor is long and intense. To be served in crystal glasses with very large bowls.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
So much ash and dried-strawberry character. Burnt orange-peel undertones. Tar, too. It’s full-bodied with chewy tannins and a flavorful finish. Lots of rose petals. This needs four or five years to open, but nicely integrated now.
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Wine Spectator
This red is expressive and harmonious, boasting aromas and flavors of ripe cherry, berry, mint, leather and tobacco, framed by spicy new oak. The oak brings an extra layer of tannins that are integrated and balanced.
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Wine Enthusiast
Aromas recalling violet, underbrush and wild berries shape the nose on this lithe, focused red. Linear and ethereal, the vibrant palate offers red cherry, black tea, strawberry and a tangy mineral note suggesting rusty nail. Taut, refined tannins provide support. Drink 2024–2029.
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Wine & Spirits
Medium-bodied and light in color, this wine comes across as understated and almost delicate, revealing layers of soft herbs, dried leaves and orange peel in its red cherry flavors. Those flavors may flesh out with a few years to balance the taut, leathery tannins.
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.