Winemaker Notes
This Barolo has a complex nose with notes of licorice and red fruits. It has a velvety texture, with vibrant and refined tannins.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
An alluring red, this invites you in with aromas and flavors of rose hip, cherry, currant, earth, mineral, tobacco and sweet spices. Firm and beautifully balanced, with finesse and tension between the delicate flavors and energetic tannins.
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James Suckling
Intense nose with orange rind, savory salted plums, cloves and minerals here with a touch of mussel shell and white pepper. Juicy and powerful with a full body and tightly wound tannins that resolve smoothly into a rich but fine finish. Long and concentrated flavors here. Drinkable now, but better to try from 2027.
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Wine Enthusiast
Intriguing notes of blueberries and violets dance on the nose, intertwined with captivating floral aromas of lavender and rose petals, creating a charming and pretty bouquet. The palate follows suit, revealing a harmonious blend of delicate blackberry and plum flavors, complemented by a touch of sage and thyme. Subtle hints of forest floor, dried leaves and damp earth add depth and complexity to this Barolo.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2020 Barolo Bric Del Fiasc, which pours a deeper ruby red color, is seductive with its plush perfume of ripe cherries, smoky earth, cedar, licorice, and balsamic herbs. It fills the palate with broad-shouldered, ripe tannins and dark mineral underpinnings that coarse through the wine. It has a more brooding personality and is fantastic and built for the long haul.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This is a retaste. The Fiasco vineyard in Castiglione Falletto has a greater concentration of marl and sand due to its location in the central part of the appellation where many different soil types intersect and overlap a series of small valleys and hills. This particular vineyard is located in a pretty amphitheater with southwest exposures at 270 meters above sea level. The vines were planted in the 1970s. The Paolo Scavino 2020 Barolo Bric dël Fiasc is certainly more generous and open than when I tasted this wine less than one year prior. It shows dark current and plum. There are hints of forest floor, bramble, iron and rust. I am told that a natural spring appears in the middle of this site. This is the last wine served in a flight of single-vineyard Barolos because it is the most powerful.
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Vinous
The 2020 Barolo Bric del Fiasc is a powerful, tannic wine. Then again, it is Bric del Fiasc. Iron, dried herbs, white pepper, geranium, orange peel and red-toned fruit are all delineated, framed by sinewy, nervous tannins that give the wine its shape. This driving, taut Barolo will need at least a few years to hit its stride. It’s a bit compacted today.
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.