Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Oddero 2022 Barolo Rocche di Castiglione takes a sharply chiseled approach, a hallmark of this celebrated MGA. Redcurrant, rose and crushed stone define the bouquet, with delicate mineral notes adding focus and precision. Fine-knit tannins frame a slender, linear mouthfeel that emphasizes elegance, with impressive definition and persistence on the finish. This release of 2,600 bottles was fermented spontaneously and aged for 24 months in 21-hectoliter oak casks.
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Jeb Dunnuck
First produced as a single-vineyard wine by the family in 1982, the 2022 Barolo Rocche di Castiglione pours a jeweled red hue. Aromas of menthol, licorice, pepper, and cherries emerge from the glass. Medium-bodied, it offers crunchy cherry fruit with remarkable clarity and freshness. The tannins are beautifully defined and carry through a long, balanced finish. The wine was aged in large French oak barrels with no new oak. Drink 2026-2040.
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James Suckling
A classic Barolo with aromas of smoke, bark, embers, graphite, potpourri, red fruit and balsamic. Full-bodied with firm and angular tannins, powerful and lifted acidity and good fruit concentration. Austere yet chewy, with energy for long aging. Drinkable now, but best from 2028.
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Vinous
The 2022 Barolo Rocche di Castiglione is stellar. It shows the pedigree of this site in spades. Vinification in an oak upright was a benefit in giving the wine mid-palate depth and textural presence not found in most wines in 2022. Dark red cherry fruit, rose petal, dried herbs, licorice and cedar build effortlessly in the glass. The 2022 is an especially somber, intense wine for this site. It is seriously impressive in the early going.
Rating: 94+ -
Wine Enthusiast
This Barolo speaks from somewhere deep in the earth, dried cherries and iron threading through crushed chalk and forest floor with an oolong tea quality that runs quietly through it all. Taut on the palate, fine tannins and pleasant bitterness building before a salty note on the finish makes its case. Aged parmesan with porcini mushrooms on toast is the answer. Drink now to 2040.
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.