Winemaker Notes
The 2016 Barolo Cannubi opens with a ruby red color in youth; takes on garnet shades with the passage of time, until it acquires delicate orange reflections. A refined and enveloping aroma with fruit and floral notes that evolve into hints of licorice, tobacco and spicy notes depending on the vintage.
At the table, it elegantly accompanies pasta with meat sauce or rissoto, red meats, roasts, game, braised meats and well-aged cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Rose-petal, woodland-berry, clove and wild herb aromas are front and center on this fragrant red along with a whiff of camphor. From the heart of this legendary vineyard area, the focused, elegantly structured palate features pomegranate, crushed raspberry, star anise and a hint of cinnamon framed in tightly knit fine-grained tannins. Bright acidity keeps it balanced and lends enough energy for long cellaring. Drink 2024–2046.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
When compared to the other wines in this flight from Fratelli Serio & Battista Borgogno, the 2016 Barolo Cannubi is by far the most defined, erect and vertical. It offers more energy and tension within, thanks to sharp tones of dark cherry, tilled earth and rusty nail. I also found aromas specific to this wine that remind me of clove or toasted cardamom seed. It all works out nicely. This wine will appeal to those who enjoy a slightly darker and more robust side of the Cannubi cru, a vineyard awash in soft, golden sunlight.
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Decanter
Floral and cherry nose, suave and generous palate with very ripe tannins. Seductive and hedonistic, saline and 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.