Winemaker Notes
A deep wine characterized by an intense garnet red color, dark fruit like figs and black cherries, spicy notes such as nutmeg and black pepper. The texture is dense, rich and charming. The tannins have a full and round grain.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Seductive and charming with cherries, crushed raspberries, warm herbs, bark and baking spices. Full body with fine tannins and bright acidity. Well-weighted with a succulent core of sour cherries and red currants at the center and a dash of citrus too. Focused and poised with a long finish. Try after 2028.
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Vinous
The 2020 Barolo Prapò is another impressive wine from the Scavino family in this vintage. Dark and somber, with plenty of Serralunga tannin, the 2020 impresses with its superb balance and class. Dark fruit, iron, leather, menthol and espresso build as this dramatic, wonderfully resonant Barolo shows off its stylish personality. Elegance and power.
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Wine Enthusiast
Prapò, a renowned Barolo cru, yields a captivating wine with dark red fruits and a superpretty nose. Lifted herbal notes intertwine with fruit and earth, creating a harmonious blend. The texture is elegant and the well-balanced tannins provide structure. A stunning expression of Nebbiolo from a top-tier vineyard.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This is a retaste. Owning to a hot growing season, the Paolo Scavino 2020 Barolo Prapò is bit softer and sweeter in terms of mouthfeel. This wine is textured and generous with dark cherry, sweet potting soil and barbecue smoke. It ends with a candied tone of lavender pastille.
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Wine Spectator
Linear in profile, this red starts out on the elegant side, boasting currant, cherry, iron, earth and wild thyme flavors. The dense, dusty tannins flex their muscles on the finish. Feels a little compact now, yet there's plenty of fruit, and this should open nicely.
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.