Winemaker Notes
Garnet color with brilliant luminous hues. The nose is inviting and complex with notes of rose petals, juniper berries and fine spices. Elegant with ample structure and silky tannins, and a long finish
Pair with mushroom pasta, fowl, and matured cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
There is an earthy and minerally overlay to the ripe, dried berry fruit, grilled mountain herbs and cooked oranges. Firm and quite juicy on the palate, with a medium to full body and vertical Barolo tannins. Austere and delicious.
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Wine Enthusiast
The wine bursts with cherry cola aromas, underpinned by ripe raspberries and an abundance of spice. Sweet tannins weave through its structure, balanced by classic acidity. As the core of mixed berries leaves an enduring mark while savory spices and hints of sandalwood offer an intriguing finish.
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Wine Spectator
Cherry, menthol, eucalyptus and iron aromas and flavors highlight this sleek red. Vibrant acidity and well-integrated tannins provide support as this plays out on the finish, with fine balance. Best from 2026 through 2042. 5,000 cases made, 2,000 cases imported.
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Vinous
The 2020 Barolo Tortoniano is a potent, heady wine to drink now and over the next handful of years. Sweet red cherry, mint, tobacco, licorice, cedar and worn-in leather all open in the glass. The 2020 looks like a near-to-medium-term wine, but it is nicely balanced throughout.
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.