Winemaker Notes
Garnet red color, this Borolo shows a delicate and persistent bouquet with aromas of licorice, rose and tobacco. Full flavored, warm and moderately tannic.
A great wine for important dishes, red meats on the spit or grilled, game, white and red meat dishes and aged cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Barolo Marcenasco is aged in large casks, whereas the 2013 Barolo Rocche dell'Annunziata sees a mix of smaller wood and barrique instead for a more robust and opulent style. This approach works very nicely across from the hearty intensity and austerity displayed by the Rocche dell'Annunziata fruit. This wine is beautifully redolent of dark cherry and spice with lingering notes of balsam and medical herb that add focus to the wine's already fragrant bouquet. This vintage will require patience. The wine is hard-headed and stubborn now. It needs time to relax with age.
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Wine Enthusiast
Aromas of exotic spice, rose, red berry, tobacco and a whiff of French oak mingle together in the glass. The aromas carry over to the elegant, firmly structured palate, along with strawberry, morello cherry and licorice. Firm, fine-grained tannins provide refined support, while a coffee note wraps up the lingering finish. Give this a few more years to unwind and fully develop; drink 2023–2038.
Cellar Selection. -
James Suckling
Expressive blueberry and plum aromas with hints of burnt oranges and cloves. Medium to full body, firm and silky tannins and a tangy finish. A little loosely knit now. Give it two or three years to come together.
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Wine Spectator
A powerful, earthy version, with plenty of richness married to cherry, licorice, eucalyptus and tobacco flavors. Dense and verging on chewy, with a long, savory aftertaste. Best from 2022 to 2040.
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.