Winemaker Notes
It is the ideal companion for typical Langhe appetizers including raw meat, vegetable flans, eggs with truffles. It is also excellent with tajarin, roasts, sheep and goat cheeses and medium-aged hard cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A medium-bodied red with chewy tannins and spice and citrus undertones. Some dried strawberries. It’s a little austere but it should soften with age. Try after 2025.
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Wine Spectator
Rich, boasting cherry, plum, spice and tar flavors. Picks up a touch of vanilla as this builds to the dusty finish. Needs time, yet has all the components. Fresh and long. Best from 2026 through 2043.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The inky red 2019 Barolo Coste Di Rose is a seriously brooding and savory wine with aromas of graphite and tar leading the charge and sappy oak spice that’s also quite present, all followed by notes of baked black cherries and espresso. Medium to full-bodied, it’s a hearty and warming style of red, but it’s not overly heavy on the palate, offering ripe, expanding tannins, an earthy profile, and a grounding sensibility. It is going to lean into its notes of black truffle and tar as it matures, and it should hold on another 8-10 years, but it’s a touch oaky for my taste.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Coste di Rose is a small MGA site that faces due east toward Bussia. The Marchesi di Barolo 2019 Barolo Coste di Rose shows purple and dark fruit aromas with toasted spice and heavier oak notes. The barrel imprint is strong in this wine, showing up in the darker nature of the bouquet and the heavier imprint on the palate.
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Wine Enthusiast
Aromas of Mascara cherries leap out of the glass quickly followed by sweet baking spices, candied rose petals, and sandalwood. Rounded on the palate, the lush and juicy mixed-berry fruits meld well with new oak flavors that give a shine and polish to the vibrant wine. Drink now–2040.
Cellar Selection
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.