Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
A deep red hue, the 2020 Barolo Rocche Di Castiglione is very expressive and detailed on the nose with notes of pure cherry liqueur, fresh rosemary, lifted spice, blood orange, and rocky earth. Energetic and balanced, it reveals lovely tension on the palate, with fine tannins, an even, mouthwatering spine of acidity, and a long finish, with notes of apricot lasting on the back palate. This beautiful wine is only going to improve over the coming two decades.
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James Suckling
Intense and ashy nose with ripe but refined berries, sweet spices, orange rind and lots of minerals. Compact yet resolved tannins unwind evenly on the full-bodied palate. Long, ashy end with some sweet spices that aren’t fully integrated yet. Better from 2027.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This is a retaste. The Paolo Scavino 2020 Barolo Rocche di Castiglione is the inaugural vintage from a vineyard that has been in family hands since 1996. In 2018, their lease in Cannubi was terminated, and the blended Barolo Carobric was deconstructed. That opened the door to making a single-vineyard expression from Rocche di Castiglione. The wine shows power and balance. It's not sweet, but it almost appears so due to its volume and ample texture. You feel some of the saltiness of the cru with crushed rock and iodine and plenty of red and purple fruits to follow. This slippery site with sandstone soils suffers from erosion issues, and the Scavino family built an important retaining wall to protect it. This is one of the first vineyards to see budbreak and among the first to be harvested.
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Wine Spectator
A bright beam of cherry courses through this red, with strawberry, floral and mineral elements in supporting roles. Though structured, this stays balanced and pure through the long, fruit- and mineral-infused aftertaste. Really captures the 2020 vintage. Best from 2027 through 2046. 100 cases made, 26 cases imported.
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.