Winemaker Notes
It is best to decant and serve it at temperatures between 18-20°C.
An important wine, it encapsulates all the history of our land and fully expresses its talents when served with rich dishes, such as roast red meats or game stew. It is also excellent with medium-mature and mature cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Forest berry, new leather, camphor and crushed herb aromas lead into the radiant structured palate along with cherry, cranberry, clove and white pepper. This is still tightly knit with a youthfully tannic core but it's on track to bloom into a stunner. Drink 2028–2043.
Cellar Selection -
Wine Spectator
This red is packed with plum, cherry, leather and iron aromas and flavors. There is a solid base of tannins, but also freshness and balance. Just needs time for that core of ripe fruit to meld with the structure. Picks up tobacco and wild herb details on the finish, along with an echo of mineral. Best from 2022 through 2042.
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James Suckling
A Barolo with lots of cherry jam, chocolate and hazelnut character. Flowers too. Medium body and, beautifully polished tannins with a fantastic texture. Hard not to drink now but made for aging.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
From Serralunga d'Alba, the 2013 Barolo Margheria is a wine that offers both elegance and power. You get the strength of texture and fiber that is characteristic of this township with the ethereal and nuanced personality that describes this classic vintage. It will be interesting to see how this wine evolves with ten years or more of cellar aging.
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.