Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2006 Barolo Bric Dël Fiasc pours a youthful ruby hue and opens with classic aromas of iron, cranberries, currants, and mineral earth. Medium-bodied, it’s racy and energetic without austerity, showing chalky refined tannins and impressive vibrancy for its age. The wine remains focused and distinctive, with beautiful lift and freshness.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2006 Barolo Bric del Fiasc is a dramatic, sweeping wine that bursts onto the palate in a powerful expression of this Castiglione Falletto vineyard. Dark red fruits, smoke and grilled herbs are just some of the nuances that come to life as this imposing, focused Barolo opens up in the glass. Today, the wine is a touch austere, but in a few years the structure should fill out nicely. It is impossible to ignore the sheer pedigree and class here. Anticipated maturity: 2016-2031.
This is a wonderful set of new wines from Enrico Scavino and his daughters Enrica and Elisa. The dark, almost impenetrable color of the 1990s is gone and these Barolos now look like Barolos. To be sure, Scavino’s wines are still characterized by a plushness and opulence of fruit that sets them apart. Yet all of these 2006 Barolos reveal exceptional length, beautifully balanced tannins and gorgeous overall harmony. They should be on anyone’s short list of must-have wines. The Barolos are fermented in stainless steel, undergo malolactic fermentation in French oak and are subsequently aged for a year in French oak barrels followed by a second year in cask.
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Wine Spectator
A rich, sumptuous Barolo, laced with cherry, plum and mineral aromas and flavors. Complex and well-structured, with a long, fruit- and spice-filled aftertaste. Best from 2013 through 2030. 900 cases imported.
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James Suckling
I'm loving the layers to this wine. Tons of dried mushrooms, flowers, and berries. Full bodied and chewy. This is a massive wine. Start cracking these open in 2014.
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.