Winemaker Notes
The wine is the perfect accompaniment to the traditional pasta of the Langhe, the dishes of red meats, stews, braised meats and game. Cheese of sheep’s milk and goat’s milk and aged cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
The aromas are complex and impressive with hazelnut, cocoa, light plum and cherry. Hints of flowers. Full and velvety texture yet fresh and very fine. Subtle finish. So balanced that it's wonderful to drink now but will be even better in three or four years.
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Wine Spectator
This starts out silky, offering cherry, strawberry, tobacco and briar flavors. The chewy tannins chime in midpalate and dominate the still-tight finish. Stays fresh, with licorice, earth and mineral elements lingering. Best from 2020 through 2033.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Marchesi di Barolo 2012 Barolo Cannubi shows some restraint at the beginning and feels slightly shut down overall. This Cannubi Barolo takes longer to open, and this does not come as a surprise, given the delicate floral and berry flavors that can be achieved in this vineyard site when optimal conditions are met. Following a few swift swirls of the glass and a little encouragement, you get licorice, balsam herb and toasted spice. Having said that, this vintage is definitely more subdued compared to many of its peers.
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.