Winemaker Notes
Prunotto’s Barolo 2016 is garnet red in color. The nose is complex and generous with pleasing aromas of rose petals, red fruit and spicy notes. The palate is full, well-balanced with velvety tannins.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Extremely perfumed on the nose with cherry, cedar and light asphalt character. Full-bodied, yet vivid and energetic with fine, polished tannins and a long, succulent finish. Pretty already, but better after 2022 and onwards.
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Wine Enthusiast
Fragrant and refined, this focused red opens with alluring scents of iris, woodland berry, botanical herb and pipe tobacco. It’s vibrant and linear, featuring strawberry compote, raspberry and star anise framed in bright acidity and taut, polished tannins. Drink 2022–2028.
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Wine Spectator
This is elegant, exuding cherry, plum, eucalyptus and mineral flavors. There is a chalky element in the texture that's clean and drying as this tightens up on the finish, with fine intensity and length. Best from 2023 through 2040.
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.