Winemaker Notes
It goes perfectly with the traditional egg pasta from the Langhe, Tajarin (Piedmont spaghetti) and ravioli al plin, with roasts, stews, braised meats and game. It ‘perfectly matched with cheese from goat’s milk and aged one.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
What a fantastic nose to this wine with aromas of roses, blackberries, strawberries and orange peel. Full-bodied, tight and focused with firm and racy tannins. It really shows a laser-guided backbone of acidity and tannin. Serious all around. Drink in 2022.
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Decanter
Valentina Abbona describes the soil of the Sarmassa cru as 'strong'. Her parcel sits on a steep, heavily eroded slope leaving just clay and stone, which curbs vigour. Aged in a combination of French oak barrique and large Slavonian oak cask, it offers rose tea, black raspberry and grilled herb notes. Despite youthful austerity, the tannins are refined and supported by plenty of flesh, along with an appetising minerality and juiciness. Drinking Window 2021 - 2037
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2013 Barolo Sarmassa is a robust and juicy expression of Nebbiolo from a classic vintage. Aged in both barrique and botte grande, the wine is silky and smooth with bright aromas of wild berry, smoke, grilled herb and white truffle. These aromas are delivered with a steady hand. This is a finely textured expression that offers ample length and persistence.
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Wine Enthusiast
Black-skinned fruit, iris, espresso, dark spice and a balsamic note all meld together in the glass along with a whiff of chopped herb. The firmly structured palate doles out ripe black cherry, raspberry jam, toast, roasted coffee bean and a hint of oak-driven spice alongside fine-grained tannins.
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Wine Spectator
This red starts out with cherry, strawberry and floral notes, adding leather, underbrush and tobacco through the finish. Elegant overall, showing balance in a sinewy, tensile way. Best from 2022 through 2036.
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.