Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Well-marked by vanilla, coconut and toasty oak aromas and flavors, this red offers ripe cherry and plum notes and a spine of vibrant acidity. This should really sing once it integrates more fully. Features a fine, mouthwatering finish, with a chalky, minerally aftertaste. Best from 2023 through 2037.
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James Suckling
A very ripe and self-assertive Barbaresco with peanuts, coffee beans, notes of tar and ash, as well as dried fruit. Hints of menthol. Very chewy and decadent on the palate with brassy tannins and an opulent finish. Blockbuster style, but holds together. The tannins linger on the roof of your mouth. Drink from 2024.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This is a private vineyard site registered to Moccagatta. The 2016 Barbaresco Bric Balin shows ripe fruit intensity with dark layers of cherry, dark blackberry and spice. This wine is more dry and subdued in terms of aromas with less of the baby fat and spice that you get in the other wines. The effect is dry and streamlined. This is a great bottle to open soon with pumpkin risotto.
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.