Winemaker Notes
Martinenga is a Barbaresco is a fine wine with meat, poultry, and aged cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2007 Barbaresco Martinenga emerges from the glass with a delicate expression of fruit that in essence defines the house style. The 2007 is a wonderfully open, expressive Martinenga laced with ripe red berries, flowers and spices, all of which come together on a weightless frame of notable class. This is a fabulous effort from Marchesi di Gresy. Anticipated maturity: 2010-2019.
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Wine Enthusiast
This intense and determined Nebbiolo from the Martinenga cru of Barbaresco delivers enticing aromas of black fruit, smoke, tar, licorice and old spice. The wine is elegant and etheral with a polished nature to its firm tannins capped by pleasantly piquant freshness on the finish.
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Tasting Panel
Pale and elegant with classic Barbaresco breeding; bright berries and flowers, spice, mint and lovely complexity; smooth, lush and integrated with finesse, great style and charm.
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Wine Spectator
Broad and chewy, sporting cherry, licorice, tar and spice flavors, this dense red has a savory thread running through it, with a lingering finish. Best from 2015 through 2027. 1,833 cases made.
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.
A wine that most perfectly conveys the spirit and essence of its place, Barbaresco is true reflection of terroir. Its star grape, like that in the neighboring Barolo region, is Nebbiolo. Four townships within the Barbaresco zone can produce Barbaresco: the actual village of Barbaresco, as well as Neive, Treiso and San Rocco Seno d'Elvio.
Broadly speaking there are more similarities in the soils of Barbaresco and Barolo than there are differences. Barbaresco’s soils are approximately of the same two major soil types as Barolo: blue-grey marl of the Tortonion epoch, producing more fragile and aromatic characteristics, and Helvetian white yellow marl, which produces wines with more structure and tannins.
Nebbiolo ripens earlier in Barbaresco than in Barolo, primarily due to the vineyards’ proximity to the Tanaro River and lower elevations. While the wines here are still powerful, Barbaresco expresses a more feminine side of Nebbiolo, often with softer tannins, delicate fruit and an elegant perfume. Typical in a well-made Barbaresco are expressions of rose petal, cherry, strawberry, violets, smoke and spice. These wines need a few years before they reach their peak, the best of which need over a decade or longer. Bottle aging adds more savory characteristics, such as earth, iron and dried fruit.