Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
The plums, dried strawberries and crushed stones pop out of the glass. Full-bodied and very layered with intense tannins and a chewy finish. This is a tannic and powerful wine. Give this three to four years to soften and come together. The tannins need to resolve. Drink after 2024.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This wine is a historic blend of fruit from Rocche di Castiglione, Cannubi and Bric dël Fiasc. Because the Cannubi lease was not renewed, Carobric will be very different after the 2018 vintage. However, the Paolo Scavino 2017 Barolo Carobric delivers what we love about this wine. It opens to a medium garnet hue and soft fruit intensity. It exhibits wild cherry and dried raspberry, with spice, smoke and lightly roasted hazelnut.
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Wine & Spirits
Fruit from Cannubi, Rocche di Castiglione and Fiasco combine in this balanced, approachable wine. Dark cherry and raspberry flavors meld with notes of orange peel and subtle spice in a taut frame, the flavors drawn out by lively acidity on a long finish.
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Jeb Dunnuck
A blend of three vineyards, the 2017 Barolo Carobric is ripe and confected on the nose with fresh cherry, licorice, and dried apricot. The palate is medium-bodied, with seamlessly fine tannins, pure raspberry leather, delicate tea leaf, and dusty earth. Drink 2021-2034.
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Wine Spectator
Savory aromas of wild thyme and eucalyptus introduce this plum and cherry-filled red. Rich and smooth, with ample tannins emerging on the lingering finish for support.
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.