Winemaker Notes
It goes well with traditional egg pastas from the Langhe (tajarin), meat-stuffed ravioli, red meats, boiled meats, braised meats and game. It is ideal for sipping alongside sheep and goat toma cheeses and hard ripened cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Beautiful perfumes and fresh flowers come out of the glass with undertones of sandalwood. It’s medium- to full-bodied with fine tannins and a polished and seductive finish. Drinkable but better with a few years of bottle age. Try after 2025.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Deep ruby red-hued, the 2019 Barolo Cannubi is ripe and inviting on the nose, with notes of black raspberry preserve, sweet lavender, balsamic herbs, and crushed rosemary. It retains nice freshness on the palate and offers similar velvety tannins and an even freshness of acidity. A clean red with good length, I really like where this is now. Drink 2024-2034.
Rating: 93+ -
Wine Spectator
Though marked by new oak, this red also boasts generous cherry and raspberry fruit, with hints of eucalyptus and tar. Elegant overall, yet will need time to absorb the oak. Vanilla-tinged finish. Best from 2026 through 2042.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Barolo Cannubi is another wine in this series that feels weighed down by oak, making it more difficult to recognize the delicate nuances of site, especially for a wine born in one of the most celebrated vineyards in Italy. Cannubi shows floral tones and crushed limestone, but just like Sarmassa and Coste di Rose (the two other special selections in a tall bottle with the light blue capsule), there is a lot of cinnamon and toasted spice to distract you.
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Wine Enthusiast
Spiced cherries macerating in their juices with candied roses and cedar aromas fill the glass of this forward and generous Barolo. Fruit of the forest preserves with licorice, anise and clove drive the palate as rounded tannins offer a generosity and approachability to the wine today. Drink now–2040.
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.