Winemaker Notes
With a ruby-red color, Barolo Noi has a rich, elegant and subtle bouquet which gradually recalls the scents of violets, plums and cherries; the spices cinnamon, pepper and licorice, as well as tobacco and white truffle. It has a dry and well-balanced flavor: thick at first with a dense and velvet consistency, then elegant, harmonic and in the end lingering.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Aromas of cherries and plums with hints of flowers. Already precise on the nose. Medium to full body. Firm and silky with a brightness. First year I have tasted this and it's solid! Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Virna 2015 Barolo Noi shows dark ripeness and saturated fruit that is characteristics of this hot vintage. This wine is built with thick lines and lots of dark blackberry fruit packed tight at its core. The tannins are firm and evident and also underline the heat and dryness of the summer season in 2015. The fruit is slightly vinous and raw. A year or two in the cellar would do it good, or else pair it in the near-term with baby back ribs. The Barolo Noi is a blend of Nebbiolo from various townships, including Monforte d'Alba (the San Giovanni vineyard), La Morra (Berri and Boiolo), Verduno (Castagni) and Novello (Cerviano-Merli and Sottocastello di Novello).
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Wine Enthusiast
Aromas of red berry, leather and a whiff of fresh mint lead the nose. The juicy palate offers Morello cherry, star anise and tobacco alongside fine-grained tannins and fresh acidity. Drink after 2022.
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Wine & Spirits
This wine’s fruit tones of cherry and plum border on jammy, perhaps the result of the hot and dry 2015 growing season. It’s a robust Barolo, with spicy, tarry notes and meaty tannins that would match with a well-marbled ribeye. Best Buy
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.