Winemaker Notes
Garnet red color with aromas of plums, violet and tobacco. Full-flavored with good tannin levels and acidity.
A great wine for important dishes, red meats roasted on a spit or grilled, game, and ripe cheeses.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Enthusiast
This wine expresses itself with aromas of wild cherries, tart red plums, dried violets and oolong tea leaves. The palate is elegant and almost dances across the mouth, leading with ripe red fruits that give way to savory flavors of fresh bay leaf, clove and balsam. Drink 2025–2040.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Here's an exciting new submission from the house of Ratti. Serradenari is a large MGA and one of only a few cru sites that exist on the western slope under the village of La Morra. The 2019 Barolo Serradenari has a more botanical-smelling bouquet, and by that I mean that it has lavender bud, thyme, aniseed and the kinds of flowers and herbs that you might find in a fragrant garden. It is nuanced and delicate and framed by a light note of ash or crushed limestone. It finishes quite firm or edgy. Only 6,000 bottles were made.
-
James Suckling
Very perfumed with orange peel, hibiscus, and sliced strawberry aromas that follow through to a full body with layers of tannins and a juicy and chewy finish. A little traditional but solid.
-
Wine Spectator
Rich and laced with cherry, raspberry, iron, tar and vanilla flavors. The firm structure keeps a lid on the finish for now, yet this is balanced and lingers on, with ripe fruit and spice elements in the aftertaste. Best from 2026 through 2043. 231 cases imported.
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.