Winemaker Notes
#4 Jeb Dunnuck Top 100 of 2025
A profound and deep perfume is the first impression of the 2021 Barolo Aleste, redolent of cherries, raspberries, wood and mineral notes, with underbrush and dark spices. It has a sense of mystery, hiding then revealing, unfolding as it evolves in the glass. On the palate is it surprisingly robust and structured, but not heavy … it dances. Red fruits predominate, balanced by flavors of spice, wood notes and garrigue. The tannins will require a good bit of patience but show the sweetness and elegance of the vintage - they simply need a few years to resolve into a coherent whole. The finish shows off the ripe tannins and notes of graphite and black fruit.
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
The 2021 Barolo Aleste is off-the-charts gorgeous. Vertical and explosive in the glass, with tremendous energy, the 2021 possesses unbelievable richness married to vibrant energy. Plum, black cherry, gravel, lavender and mocha soar out of the glass. Readers will find a Barolo of stature and breeding.
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Wine Spectator
Though on the quiet side today, this Barolo evokes cherry, black currant, violet, mineral and wild herbs. The flavors are perfectly in balance with the bright acidity and refined tannins, leaving a long, detailed aftertaste of fruit, mineral and savory elements. Shows superb intensity from start to finish. Best from 2029 through 2050.
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Jeb Dunnuck
A reflective red color, the 2021 Barolo Aleste leads with compelling and introspective notes of sandalwood, ripe cherries, hints of truffle, and fresh leather. The palate is supple and has a vibrant spine of acidity, mouthwatering mineral accents, and an underlying noble structure. As I am finding with the top producers in this vintage, the tannins demand time but also have a sweetness to them that makes the wines highly pleasurable to taste now, and they should improve and age very well. Drink 2027-2050.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
With fruit from the Cannubi Boschis vineyard, the 2021 Barolo Aleste is a lavish and beautiful expression with dark fruit, spice, licorice, cola and blue flower. The house style is always fruit-forward and bold at the Sandrone family estate, but you can also count on the wines to show excellent contouring with oak spice, soft richness and texture thanks to expertly applied tonneaux aging. The balance is impeccable.
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Decanter
A beguiling and expressive nose allures with notes of rose, tobacco, earthy medicinal roots and exotic spice. This has the fruit density of the vintage with layers of elegant, chalky tannins and well embedded oak. Cedar-infused red berries provide lip-smacking tang and the finish is positively salivating. From the original plot in Cannubi Boschis that Luciano Sandrone bought in 1977, along with more recent acquisitions in Cannubi proper. A rechristening in 2013 to Aleste represents a contraction of his two grandchildren names: Alessia and Stefano.
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James Suckling
This is a restrained wine with aromas of Parma violets, dried cherries, strawberries, licorice and a hint of vibrant orange peel. It’s almost austere on the nose. The palate is elegant, with muscular yet refined tannins, refreshing acidity, a velvety texture, dried flower and orange flavors and a filigreed finish. Drinkable now, but best from 2026.
Luciano Sandrone is one of the most iconic producers in Barolo, and his is both a well known and extraordinary story. He started to learn viticulture at the age of 14 or 15, and after years of work as a cellarman he depleted his life savings and purchased his first vineyard on the Cannubi hill in 1977, though he could only manage his land on the weekends while he continued to work. He made his first vintage in 1978, in the garage of his parents, and then spent years refining his ideas about how to make a wine of distinction and utmost quality that respected the traditions of Barolo while incorporating new ideas and understanding about viticulture and vinification. He made every vintage until 1999 at home, until the winery he constructed in 1998 was ready for use.
Sandrone's wines are sometimes described as straddling the modern and traditional styles in the region: elegant, attractive and easy to appreciate right from their first years in bottle, but with no less power and structure than traditional Barolos. Along with the extremely low yields in the vineyard and an obsessive attention to training, pruning and harvesting, Sandrone has a very rational approach in the cellar. This approach, however, is also unique and outside of simple classification: Sandrone subjects his wines to medium-length maceration period, shorter than traditional, but makes limited use of new oak in the maturation process, which takes place in 500 liter tonneaux, all signs of a more traditional approach in the cellar. The entire range of wines, all limited in production, are jewels of impeccably balanced concentration and precision, and the ability to age for long periods of time.
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.