Winemaker Notes
Garnet red in color, the Conca Barolo shows a delicate and persistent bouquet with traces of licorice, mint and Lebanese cedar pine. Mineral, full flavored, warm and agreeably 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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Wine Enthusiast
Rose petal, red berry, exotic spice and a balsamic whiff of camphor all come together on this fragrant red. On the precise linear palate, you’ll find juicy Marasca cherry, pomegranate, licorice and crushed aromatic herb alongside a framework of polished, fine-grained tannins. Vibrant acidity provides balance and energy.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This is a re-taste of a review published several months ago that I left without an official score. The 2014 Barolo Conca is fragrant and enormously floral with whiffs of garden rose, pressed violet and white truffle. In fact, I am very happy I came back to this bottle because it is just singing now with a clear and harmonious voice. Like the other wines from this vintage, the wine shows a delicate, almost fragile state that adds to its overall elegance and accessible appeal.
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Wine Spectator
This starts out with licorice, cherry and tar flavors, picking up mint, hay and iron notes as it builds to a lengthy finish. Not a big red, yet intense and solidly constructed. Best from 2023 through 2043. 264 cases imported.
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Decanter
This small cru is in the Annunziata sector of La Morra. Ratti's wines always show finesse rather than power, and this has a delicate, poised raspberry nose. It's medium-bodied but stylish and quite concentrated, with ripe tannins and sufficient acidity. It's a forward style that's quite elegant, balanced and rewarding now, but it's should go the distance too. Quite long. Drinking Window 2019 - 2030
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James Suckling
Attractive ripe red cherries and wild red berries in a vibrant, sweetly spiced style. Has a palate with juicy, even-paced tannins and a strong core of fresh acidity. Drink or hold.
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.