Winemaker Notes
Ruby red, nearly garnet. Elegant, delicate tones of spices and red fruit. Well balance and delicate.
Serve with red meat roasts, truffle dishes, all game and ripe cheese.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Parusso 2018 Barolo Mariondino is a bigger and more concentrated wine compared to the Perarmando. With fruit from Castiglione Falletto, it also has what tastes like riper, darker and more fleshed-out fruit flavors. This wine delivers lots of power (with 15% alcohol), stems, structure and large-scale tannins, as expected. It's a lot to take in. Best After 2024
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Wine Spectator
This broad, muscular Barolo boasts prominent aromas of juniper and eucalyptus, yet there are also plenty of plum, cherry, licorice and tobacco flavors. Delivers substantial beefy tannins, which compact the finish, yet this feels balanced overall. Best from 2026.
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James Suckling
A medium-bodied Barolo with pretty easygoing wild-strawberry and fine-tannin style. Compact and tight, this is tempting even now, but give it another year.
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Vinous
Parusso's 2018 Barolo Mariondino is a gorgeous, effusive wine. Bright floral accents, kirsch, orange peel, new oak, spice and mint give the 2018 its sculpted, chiseled personality. There is terrific cut and energy here. This is an especially fine showing from the Mariondino.
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Decanter
Light orange red color in the glass. Unusual but super expressive nose, really fragrant cherry notes, delicately perfumed, but so distinct - like potpourri, dried flowers with touches of cola and caramel. Precise and driven on the palate, certainly with a distinct coffee, cherry stone flavor. Good acidity, juicy, mouthwatering and incredibly fresh - freshly picked strawberries and cherries - but it's the savory touch with a real mineral stone cleanliness that grips the tongue and takes hold that is so captivating. Lovely depth on the mid palate, quite a driven style but very linear, direct and taught at the moment. More savory than overtly fruity. Super elegant.
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Wine Enthusiast
Tart sour cherries leap out of the glass of this vibrant Barolo. Hints of blood orange, dried flowers and savory herbs emerge after the wine spends more time in the glass (a good decant is recommended). The palate shows youthful primary red-fruit notes en masse, with more subtle herbal and earthy hints in the background. Super-supple tannins and classic Nebbiolo acidity keep the wine balanced.
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.