Winemaker Notes
With its big structure, this wine is particularly adapted to main courses of red meats, braised dishes, and game in general. An ideal accompaniment for cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A very plush and attractive Barolo that has an abundance of orange-zest aromas, as well as ripe red cherries and red plums that appear on both the nose and palate. The concentration of fruit flavor is impressive, the tannins sweep long and rich and the depth is undeniable. Drink or hold.
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Wine Enthusiast
Red berry and rose aromas mix with scents of forest floor and balsamic whiffs of eucalyptus on this fragrant red. Full bodied and linear, the vibrant palate shows good tension, offering ripe Marasca cherry, pomegranate, licorice and tobacco framed in firm, fine-grained tannins. It will develop even more complexity with aging. Drink 2023–2035. Cellar Selection.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: 2015 Marchesi di Barolo Sarmassa shows formidable on the palate, with healthy complementary tannins. TASTING NOTES: This wine exhibits aromas and flavors of fragrant spices and clean rusticity. Pair it with slow-braised lamb shanks over freshly-made egg noodles. (Tasted: February 21, 2022, San Francisco, CA)
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Decanter
This historic and very large company has been run, and run well, for decades by the Abbona family. Sarmassa, along with Cannubi, is its most important single-vineyard wine, located on clay and limestone soils that give very good ageing potential. The wine is aged in both barriques and large casks. This is sumptuous and generous on the nose, lightly marked by oak, with aromas of cherries, raspberries, and liquorice. Fresh and lively, the palate nonetheless has admirable concentration and grip as well as vibrant red fruits. Long, with an assertive finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
From a beautiful growing site in the Barolo township that consistently delivers structure and depth, the 2015 Barolo Sarmassa offers a slightly austere and firm personality that puts the wine in a good position in terms of its future bottle aging potential. This Barolo reveals thick, etched lines with dark fruit, plum, spice and tangy licorice. The wine appears direct, fruit-forward and suitably propped up by its thick inner fiber.
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Wine Spectator
Intense aromas of rose and cherry are augmented by leather, iron and tar notes in this sleek red. Burly tannins show up on the finish, yet this plays out with good equilibrium and freshness. Best from 2023 through 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.