Winemaker Notes
Vigna Colonnello is ruby red with garnet hues. The nose is intense and well balanced with notes of blueberries, raspberries and currants accompanied by balsamic hints, impressions of Mediterranean scrub and floral notes of dried roses. The well-balanced palate has a powerful and fine tannic texture while at the same time expresses great elegance. The finish is long and complex.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This is a one hell of a vineyard and a serious wine with strawberries and fresh flowers. Full and intense with chewy tannins, but polished and ripe at the finish. Round and luscious with focus and richness. Nice step forward in quality here. Drink now or hold.
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Vinous
The 2017 Barolo Riserva Bussia Vigna Colonnello is an exotic, wild wine. Dark, savory and expressive, the 2017 has a lot to offer. The use of whole clusters introduces an attractive savory element that is complemented by the naturally more advanced notes of a wine that is now nearly six years old. Plum, macerated cherry, rosewater, spice, sage, lavender and dried herbs build as this deep, creamy Barolo shows off its incredibly distinctive personality.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Tasted before the wine was bottled, the Prunotto 2017 Barolo Riserva Bussia Vigna Colonnello shows that point of candied cherry or raspberry that underlines the dry and hot conditions of the summer growing season. Beyond that note of ripeness, however, this wine does reveal more complexity in the form of black licorice, spice and crushed flowers. The parcel measures 4.5 hectares with south-facing exposures and clay and loam soils.
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.