Winemaker Notes
Garnet red. A bouquet with traces of licorice and tobacco. Full flavored, full-bodied and elegant.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This is so perfumed and beautiful with cherries, strawberries and dried flowers that follow through to a medium to full body with firm, fine tannins and a long, energetic finish. All about length and finesse. Drink in 2024.
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Wine Enthusiast
Camphor, pressed rose and oak-driven spice aromas come to the forefront. The smooth, full-bodied palate features spiced cranberry, dried cherry, licorice and coffee bean framed in tightly wound, fine grained tannins that clench the close. Drink 2025–2032
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Although it is not an official MGA vineyard designation, the Marcenasco vineyard is located directly under the Ratti family winery and is the site most historically linked to the legacy of this estate. The Renato Ratti 2017 Barolo Marcenasco is balanced and fine with a long and polished sensation. Like the other wines in this estate portfolio, the hot vintage is played forward in terms of dried fruit aromas and dusty tannins and not overt jamminess or ripeness. This makes for a thinner mouthfeel and ultimately a shorter drinking window.
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Wine Spectator
Plum, leather, spice and tar flavors highlight this lively red, with dusty tannins coating the finish. Not that expressive today, yet long.
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.