Winemaker Notes
An outstanding red wine for roasts, this Barolo combines exceptionally well with main courses of red meats, braised dishes and aged and piquant cheeses. When aged at length, it makes a superb sipping wine.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
This ripe, fresh red is hallmarked by plum, macerated cherry, green tea and menthol flavors. Delivers seductive fruit and is begging to be drunk now, yet the structure indicates that this will age beautifully. Best from 2024 through 2042.
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James Suckling
Beautifully perfumed with cherry, dried-strawberry and walnut character, as well as undertones of tar. Medium-to full-bodied with creamy, chewy tannins and light chocolate and berry undertones. Fine-textured at the end. Try after 2022.
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Wine Enthusiast
Crushed mint, pressed rose and underbrush mingle with a whiff of clove. It's full bodied and juicy, offering black cherry, cranberry, truffle and espresso alongside assertive close-grained tannins that grip the finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Marchesi di Barolo 2016 Barolo Coste di Rose delivers exactly what the vineyard's name suggests: aromas of wild rose and dried violet. On the back of those floral tones are some tangy touches of wild berry and dried apricot with tar, tobacco and black licorice. Within the greater Marchesi di Barolo portfolio, this wine is uniquely floral, with soft, approachable tannins. You could age this wine or sample it straight out of the gate with some grilled porcini.
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.