Winemaker Notes
The 2016 Renato Ratti Conca Barolo is a garnet red color. The wine opens with a delicate and persistent bouquet with traces of licorice, mint and Lebanese cedar pine. Mineral, full flavored, warm and agreeable tannic.
A great wine for important dishes, red meats on the spit or grilled, game, "grande cuisine" white and red meat dishes and aged cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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The Somm Journal
From the winery’s La Morra property, this singlevineyard Barolo offers ecstatic notes of brown-sugared cherries—tart, vibrant, and washed in earthy notes of balsamic. Dried roses and chalky minerality run with fine acidity uplifted by jasmine
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Tasting Panel
From the winery’s La Morra property, this single-vineyard Barolo offers ecstatic notes of brown-sugared cherries—tart, vibrant, and washed in earthy notes of balsamic. Dried roses and chalky minerality run with fine acidity uplifted by jasmine
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Wine Enthusiast
Fragrant, elegant and brimming with youthful tension, this radiant red has enticing aromas evoking red rose, forest berry, camphor and dark spice. Loaded with finesse, the focused palate doles out juicy red cherry, pomegranate, licorice and a mineral tone alongside taut, refined tannins. Fresh acidity keeps balance and focus. Drink 2026-2036.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Renato Ratti 2016 Barolo Conca is another stunning beauty from this leading estate in La Morra. Conca is a prized vineyard, and you will immediately notice light mineral signatures of crushed limestone and chalk suspended delicately over the bouquet, hovering there like a veil. After a few swirls of your glass, you'll find rose, licorice, dark cherry and berry fruit. You can make out some of the oaky spice, but those aromas are very well integrated into the bigger picture here at hand. I tasted this bottle after a double decant and am delighted with these excellent results. Camphor ash and menthol notes create a pretty signature on the close.
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Wine Spectator
A deft touch of oak frames the cherry and strawberry fruit in this elegant red, with accents of tobacco and iron chiming in as it firms up on the finish. The harmony and moderate tannins make this approachable now, and it should evolve over the short term. Best from 2022 through 2035.
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.