Winemaker Notes
Barolo Bussia 2021 is bright, lively garnet red in color with ruby red hues. The nose offers notes of blood oranges and plums that accompany floral aromas of roses and violets, spicy hints of pepper, cinnamon and forest floor. The palate is intense and juicy with supple tannins. Outstanding freshness leads to a persistent finish with rich fruity notes and hints of aromatic herbs.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A complex and austere wine with sleek aromas of red cherries, red currants, wax, violets and licorice. Full-bodied, it shows velvety tannins, a full-bodied palate, integrated and refreshing acidity and a crisp, chewy finish. A graceful interpretation of Bussia. Drink or hold.
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Vinous
The 2021 Barolo Bussia is a heady, beguiling wine. Dark fruit, spice, herbs, licorice and balsamic notes open in a mysterious, complex Barolo that reveals myriad shades of nuance over time. Muscular tannins appear on the mid-palate and finish as this deceptively mid-weight Barolo opens with a bit of coaxing. There's a lot of wine here. I can't wait to see how this ages.
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Decanter
The 2021 is neither dense nor muscular. Instead, it exalts a more graceful expression. Scents of mint and tobacco leaf overlay dark red brambly berries. That perfumed character echoes beautifully on the elegantly weighted palate, and the tannins are sweet but properly assertive nonetheless. Prunotto’s historic bottling, this Bussia was one of the first single-site Barolos in 1961. The estate’s nine hectares are largely within the Soprana subzone and include a portion of the Colonnello vineyard, which is bottled separately as a Riserva.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2021 Barolo Bussia is also a medium red color and has a more introspective and serious nose with notes of licorice, dark stones, red cherries, and leather. It fills the palate with ripe tannins, a ripe mid-palate, and a good finish with a note of sweet fruit and a light meaty feel, although it’s very well-integrated into the fabric of the wine. It has a bit more depth in the range and should drink well over the coming 12-15 years.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Prunotto 2021 Barolo Bussia (with 20,000 bottles released) is a little shy or closed on first nose and will require extra time in bottle before you pop the cork. This estate has eight hectares of vines in Bussia to source fruit from. It exhibits a lean and delicate consistency with blue flowers, orange peel and redcurrant. There are hints of grilled herb as well. Winemaking is simple, with phases in stainless steel and oak.
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Wine Spectator
This is light and more on the elegant side, offering cherry, strawberry, hay, green olive and iron flavors. Lively and resonant, picking up a line of powdery tannins while winding down on the finish. Vibrant and long in the end.
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.