Winemaker Notes
Deep garnet red. Intense aroma with clean scents of wild rose, vanilla, licorice and spices. Feather the resin of pine and tobacco. Taste is full and elegant, full bodied, with tannins in evidence, with recurring olfactory sensations. Enjoyable are the spicy and woody notes that blend perfectly.
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
Currants, brambleberries, lavender, dried mushrooms, bitter chocolate, tea leaves and cedar on the nose. Medium-bodied with precise, firm and tight tannins. Delicious dark-tea, cocoa and stone character. A joy to taste already...
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Decanter
Southeast-facing Sarmassa in Barolo is situated on stony clay and limestone soils, which naturally limits the vigour of the vines. Concentrated and sticky black fruits with a red fruit streak combine with balsamic overtones, touches of black tea and chocolate, and big, grippy tannins for a powerfully structured rendition of Nebbiolo.
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Wine Enthusiast
Aromas of dark-skinned fruit, cedar and culinary spice lead the way. The taut palate offers black plum, vanilla and licorice alongside polished tannins and fresh acidity. Drink 2023–2030.
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Wine Spectator
This red is not only expressive, exuding cherry, raspberry, mineral, earth and mint flavors, but it's also silky and succulent. Reveals refined tannins and bright acidity, which lend support as this glides to a long aftertaste.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Certainly more austere and structured compared to some of the other new releases from Marchesi di Barolo, the 2018 Barolo Sarmassa is nicely tweaked by basic aging and barrel time. You get a dark quality of fruit with plum and blackberry, and there is integrated spice and smoke as well from the barrel aging. The wine goes into French oak for nine months and follows in Slavonian casks for an additional 12 months. The oak tannins are on the dry side as a result.
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.