Winemaker Notes
Ruby red color. Elegant nose with refined red fruit notes. On the palate, it is complex, with a full-body, silky, rich, with a long finish.
Pairs well with fresh egg pastas, risottos, white meats, red meats, venison and cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Produttori del Barbaresco 2019 Barbaresco Riserva Asili is defined by a special spiciness that is reminiscent of powdered cinnamon and nutmeg folded into dark fruit. The wine is open-knit and quite ready, and it also shows a pretty mineral note of ferrous earth or rusty nail. Like the other Riservas in this series, it is aged in botte grande or otherwise neutral oak. The 2019 vintage tends to show more volume and texture.
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Wine Spectator
This is lean and well-defined, offering plum, cherry, earth, mineral and camphor aromas and flavors. There's a feeling of ripeness midpalate, before the tannins put their exclamation mark on the lingering finish.
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James Suckling
Youthful fruit character of ripe cherries and violets. The wine on the palate is firm, extracted and medium-bodied. Precise in the finish.
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Vinous
The 2019 Barbaresco Riserva Asili is a very pretty, silky wine that shows all the signatures of this site in its refined, mid-weight personality. Crushed flowers, sweet red berry fruit, cedar, mint and tobacco all grace this classy Barbaresco. The 2019 is classic Asili, with firm tannins from the year.
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Wine Enthusiast
The nose highlights aromas of warm strawberry jam, wild thyme, snapped mint and mixed wildflowers that slowly emerge. Dark sour cherries sit at the core of the palate as savory herbs and spices swirl about the fine-grained tannins. Vibrant acidity lifts the palate toward the finish as subtle hints of grilled mushrooms provide an umami kick at the last sip.
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.
A wine that most perfectly conveys the spirit and essence of its place, Barbaresco is true reflection of terroir. Its star grape, like that in the neighboring Barolo region, is Nebbiolo. Four townships within the Barbaresco zone can produce Barbaresco: the actual village of Barbaresco, as well as Neive, Treiso and San Rocco Seno d'Elvio.
Broadly speaking there are more similarities in the soils of Barbaresco and Barolo than there are differences. Barbaresco’s soils are approximately of the same two major soil types as Barolo: blue-grey marl of the Tortonion epoch, producing more fragile and aromatic characteristics, and Helvetian white yellow marl, which produces wines with more structure and tannins.
Nebbiolo ripens earlier in Barbaresco than in Barolo, primarily due to the vineyards’ proximity to the Tanaro River and lower elevations. While the wines here are still powerful, Barbaresco expresses a more feminine side of Nebbiolo, often with softer tannins, delicate fruit and an elegant perfume. Typical in a well-made Barbaresco are expressions of rose petal, cherry, strawberry, violets, smoke and spice. These wines need a few years before they reach their peak, the best of which need over a decade or longer. Bottle aging adds more savory characteristics, such as earth, iron and dried fruit.