Winemaker Notes
Despite its strong personality, Barolo can be enjoyed frequently with red meat and ground game, even – why not? – with very rich fish dishes, such as baked turbot, or a dinner featuring speciality cheeses.
Serving temperature: 17-19°C – serve in a balloon glass – we advise decanting very old vintages before drinking to allow them to breathe.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2001 Barolo Bussia Dardi/Le Rose is a big, authoritative wine. Menthol, spices, plums, licorice and tar are woven into a fabric of notable class. The 2001 is both rich and weightless, in the way only Nebbiolo can be. There is a wonderful centeredness and focus to the fruit that carries thorugh to the finish. With air the 2001 is enjoyable today but it can also be cellared for another decade or so, give or take. The virile, muscular finish adds quite a bit of personality. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2021.
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Wine Enthusiast
Smells a bit earthy and rustic, with scents of leather and iron ore, but the fruit emerges on the palate, slowly unfolding to reveal layers of plums and black cherries. This is a wine whose true potential is seen most clearly on the finish at this early stage of its evolution, where it gains in fruit intensity and complexity, boding well for the future.
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.