Winemaker Notes
Deep garnet-red. Aromas of sage, rosemary, and other earthy hints. Rich texture, round-soft tannins.
Serve with red meat roasts, truffle dishes, all game and ripe cheese.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Showing special directness and focus, the Parusso 2021 Barolo Mosconi delivers the rich and stemmy-tasting house style. However, this wine from Monforte d'Alba also offers pretty luminosity and clarity of aromas with cherry, redcurrant and spice. The wine is bold and balanced with broad shoulders, but the quality of the vintage shines through with pretty notes of crushed flower and rose.
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James Suckling
This shows licorice, cedar and some blackberries. The palate is full-bodied with grippy, imposing tannins and a shy thread of fruit. Chewy finish. This needs at least 5 years to soften. Best from 2030.
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Wine Spectator
Broad, rich and powerful, this red exudes cherry, plum, eucalyptus, iron and sun-kissed hay flavors. Backed by dense, dusty tannins that emerge midpalate and dominate the finish. Nevertheless, the lasting impression is ripe fruit.
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Vinous
The 2021 Barolo Mosconi is a large-scaled, bold wine that embodies Marco Parusso's style. Black cherry, blackberry, chocolate, dried herbs, leather, licorice and lavender are all framed by huge, potent tannins what wrap it all together. This ample, dense Barolo has a ton to offer. All this needs is a few years for the tannins to soften.
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.