Winemaker Notes
The color is garnet red with ruby hues. The aroma is intense, persistent with clean aromas of fruits, dog roses and spices. Full, but at the same time, harmonious and balanced, with soft tannins, elegant and austere flavor with a good body and lingering hints of the olfactory sensations.
This kind of wine is perfect to pair with pasta based dished, especially dressed with meat sauce, also good with ravioli pasta, red meats, roasts, stews, and cheeses of medium seasoning.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Enthusiast
Fragrant purple flower, woodland berry, eucalyptus and exotic spice aromas mingle together on this fragrant red. The savory, linear palate boasts finesse and flavor, delivering juicy cherry, blood orange and star anise framed in taut, fine-grained tannins. Fresh acidity keeps it balanced. Drink 2022–2028.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Barbaresco Tradizione moves over the palate with direct and silky intensity. Along the way, the wine imparts delicate tones of forest berry, wild cherry and rose hip. There are subtle hints of tar, button mushroom and tilled earth at the back. However, what I noticed most are the bright menthol notes that you get as the wine warms in the glass. This is a simple and easy-drinking Barbaresco to pair with your favorite pasta dishes. The wine is aged in botte grande only.
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.
A wine that most perfectly conveys the spirit and essence of its place, Barbaresco is true reflection of terroir. Its star grape, like that in the neighboring Barolo region, is Nebbiolo. Four townships within the Barbaresco zone can produce Barbaresco: the actual village of Barbaresco, as well as Neive, Treiso and San Rocco Seno d'Elvio.
Broadly speaking there are more similarities in the soils of Barbaresco and Barolo than there are differences. Barbaresco’s soils are approximately of the same two major soil types as Barolo: blue-grey marl of the Tortonion epoch, producing more fragile and aromatic characteristics, and Helvetian white yellow marl, which produces wines with more structure and tannins.
Nebbiolo ripens earlier in Barbaresco than in Barolo, primarily due to the vineyards’ proximity to the Tanaro River and lower elevations. While the wines here are still powerful, Barbaresco expresses a more feminine side of Nebbiolo, often with softer tannins, delicate fruit and an elegant perfume. Typical in a well-made Barbaresco are expressions of rose petal, cherry, strawberry, violets, smoke and spice. These wines need a few years before they reach their peak, the best of which need over a decade or longer. Bottle aging adds more savory characteristics, such as earth, iron and dried fruit.