Winemaker Notes
Barolo Bussia has an intense garnet red color with ruby red hues. On the nose, aromas of ripe stone fruit merge with floral and spicy notes. It has an intense palate with soft mouth filling tannins and a long finish.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Spectator
Bright cherry, currant and orange zest flavors are the hallmarks of this elegant red. Linear, tense and persistent through the lingering, minerally and woodsy finish. This is just starting to hit its stride now, but has the energy for a long life ahead.
-
James Suckling
Lots of dried mushroom, berry and citrus character. Hints of cedar and rose petal. Medium to full body, tangy acidity and fruit. Flavorful finish. Needs a little time to open. Excellent potential.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Antinori family has completed an enormous amount of work to perfect and manage their vineyard holdings in Monforte d'Alba. The 2013 Barolo Bussia is stitched together with fine detailing. The aromas are delicate and nuanced, yet when put together, they expand in intensity and unity. This is a smooth and silky expression that moves with grace over all the senses. It is a mid-wight expression that should flesh out with a few more years of bottle aging.
-
Wine Enthusiast
Woodland berry, tilled soil, dried rose, new leather and aromatic herb aromas come together in this fragrant, racy red. It's rather light in body and ethereal for Barolo, already accessible, offering flavors of tart sour cherry, clove and chopped dill. Firm acidity and polished tannins provide lithe support.
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.