Winemaker Notes
Serio & Battista Borgogno 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 risotto, red meats, roasts, game, braised meats and well-aged cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
The Fratelli Serio & Battista Borgogno 2021 Barolo Cannubi shows an equal dose of dark fruit, blackcurrant and oak spice that is backed by campfire ash, spent ember and crushed rose. This is a powerful Barolo with a light appearance that pushes from the back with firm tannins. Winemaking sees 30 days of maceration in oak and 31 months of aging in oak.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2021 Barolo Cannubi has a deeper, youthful ruby color and benefits from some air on opening to allow its volatile notes to open up and give way to aromas of licorice, cherries, clove, and cedar. The palate is chiseled in structure, with a medium-bodied frame, refreshing acidity, and angular tannins that become a bit more pronounced on the finish.
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Vinous
The 2021 Barolo Cannubi captures all the classicism of this site in its delineated aromatics, silky tannins and mid-weight structure. Gracious and light on its feet, the 2021 is charming and easy to like. That said, I did expect a bit more, given the pedigree of the year. Sweet dried cherry, dried herbs, cedar and pipe tobacco lift the mid-palate and finish.
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.