Winemaker Notes
The color of the Casa E. di Mirafiore Barolo is garnet-red with ruby highlights that take on a slightly orange tone over time. It has a clear-cut, intense nose with overtones of vanilla, spices, withered roses and underbrush. The taste is dry, but soft, full-bodied, velvety and well-balanced, and is very long-lasting.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Enticing nose of red berries, creamy spice and flowers, following through to a medium-full palate with quite an intense fruit drive, mellowed by fine tannins and the same, silky texture that the nose suggested.
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Wine Enthusiast
Aromas of violet, iris, baking spice and woodland berries form the enticing nose. It's full-bodied and firmly structured, featuring crushed raspberry, ripe Morello cherry, licorice and tobacco alongside tightly knit, close-grained tannins and surprising acidity for the scorching vintage. Drink 2025–2032.
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Wine Spectator
Cherry, plum, leather and tar flavors are the highlights of this beefy red, which is rich, fresh and well-balanced, with a finish of earth, eucalyptus and tobacco accents. Best from 2024 through 2040. 4,000 cases made, 3,500 cases imported.
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Wine & Spirits
Notes of lavender and mint accent flavors of red and dark cherry in this concentrated yet balanced wine. The tannins feel cool and polished, allowing that generous, ripe red fruit full expression.
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.