Winemaker Notes
Its color is garnet red. A delicate and persistent bouquet with traces of licorice and tobacco. Full flavored, warm and moderately tannic. An elegant and well-balanced wine.
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
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2006 Barolo Rocche is the most nuanced of these wines. Sweet, floral aromatics lead to a richly textured core of fruit that is supported by well-balanced French oak. This is a lighter, more refined style than the Conca, but the wine possesses an extra degree of finesse and elegance. The silky tannins for which this vineyard is so famous are in full evidence. Ratti gave the Rocche a year in French oak followed by a second year in larger Slovenian oak casks. Ratti’s 2006 Rocche is an exceptional Barolo in this vintage. Anticipated maturity: 2016-2031.
-
Wine Spectator
This rich red delivers iron, medicinal herbs and plum flavors accented by raw meat notes. A steel structure of tannins lets you know that patience is required. Fine length, with a mineral aftertaste. Distinctive and muscular. Best from 2015 through 2035. 100 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.