Winemaker Notes
Sottimano Barbaresco Cottà has licorice notes and a light touch of smokiness. Dried roses dominate the floral scents. It remains delicate in the mouth and, yet, with plenty of aromatic persistence and well balanced tannins.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Moving to the 2020 Barbaresco Cotta, fantastic mineral-tinged aromas of crushed stones, pencil shavings, and blackberry are followed by a medium-bodied red with a ripe yet linear feel and crunchy red fruits of red plum, orange rind, and clove. I liked this for its more tension-packed and energetic feel and stony texture. Drink 2025-2040.
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Vinous
The 2020 Barbaresco Cottá is dense, powerful and closed in on itself. Black cherry, plum, spice, menthol, mocha and earthiness add to an impression of gravitas. Huge tannins give this potent, brooding wine a great deal of structure. This impressive, young Barbaresco needs time.
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James Suckling
Notes of raspberries and plum skins with walnuts, bark, ground spices and wet earth. Polished and a little chewy with medium to full body and chalky texture to the tannins. Firm and steady. Linear finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
A wine from Sottimano that also draws its fruit from the village of Neive (and Barbaresco, because these 2.8 hectares of vines are on the border), the 2020 Barbaresco Cottá shows an austere character with pronounced rust or iodine aromas that are neatly layered into dark fruit and dried cherry. The wine sports a generous, medium-weight texture that offers a good amount of textural firmness to the palate. Give this pretty wine a little more time to flesh out. Rating:?94+
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Wine Spectator
This red has a warm, brambly, woodsy quality that downplays the muted fruit. Boasts burly tannins, with a spicy, complex finish. Shows the more muscular side of Barbaresco.
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.
A wine that most perfectly conveys the spirit and essence of its place, Barbaresco is true reflection of terroir. Its star grape, like that in the neighboring Barolo region, is Nebbiolo. Four townships within the Barbaresco zone can produce Barbaresco: the actual village of Barbaresco, as well as Neive, Treiso and San Rocco Seno d'Elvio.
Broadly speaking there are more similarities in the soils of Barbaresco and Barolo than there are differences. Barbaresco’s soils are approximately of the same two major soil types as Barolo: blue-grey marl of the Tortonion epoch, producing more fragile and aromatic characteristics, and Helvetian white yellow marl, which produces wines with more structure and tannins.
Nebbiolo ripens earlier in Barbaresco than in Barolo, primarily due to the vineyards’ proximity to the Tanaro River and lower elevations. While the wines here are still powerful, Barbaresco expresses a more feminine side of Nebbiolo, often with softer tannins, delicate fruit and an elegant perfume. Typical in a well-made Barbaresco are expressions of rose petal, cherry, strawberry, violets, smoke and spice. These wines need a few years before they reach their peak, the best of which need over a decade or longer. Bottle aging adds more savory characteristics, such as earth, iron and dried fruit.