Winemaker Notes
Intense ruby red with garnet hues. Penetrating, captivating, and highly aromatic with classic notes of red fruit and hints of freshly cut flowers, hay, and sweet spices. Austere and noble, with great vigor, fullness, savoriness, and minerality. The excellent terroir and particular microclimate create a unique complexity.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
This is settling into a nice rhythm, boasting fading cherry and plum fruit, leather and spice flavors, with an underlying iron element. Lively, even linear in profile, with a firm buzz of tannins in the end. Shows terrific balance and savory length. Best from 2027 through 2045. 200 cases made, 30 cases imported.
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Decanter
With a tiny 0.3ha sliver in the prestigious MGA of Rocche dell’Annunziata, the estate crafts just 2,000 bottles of this Riserva. It ages exclusively in barriques, 30% of which are new. Oak-inflected vanilla notes meld with candied mint, carob and fig. The palate is mature, dense and seductively fashioned. Rich, supple plum is countered by bay leaf, leather and coffee nuances. Smooth, fine-grained tannins wrap around effortlessly, holding it all together with admirable tautness. Appealing now but may tap into its more savoury charms with time.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2019 Barolo Riserva Rocche Dell'Annunziata pours a dark red brick color and offers a concentrated and very ripe profile, with notes of baked plums, melding spices, leather, balsamic, and resinous chewing tobacco. Full-bodied, it fills the palate with a deep, savory feel, fleshy tannins, and a grounding and ripe persistent finish. For my taste, it’s lacking in freshness, but it should hold up over the next 10 years.
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.
