Winemaker Notes
Very deep ruby-red; still rather fresh nose, with hints of red berries steeped in delicate vanilla; dry, full taste, packed with body and structure combined with polyphenolic compounds that cater for lengthy ageing.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Beautiful nose of wild strawberries and raspberries, dried flowers and mushrooms, tree bark and some flirty, cinnamon-like spice. Medium-to full-bodied with very fine, firm tannins that are coated in bright fruit and minerals. The complex fruit character is still there at the end. So nebbiolo and so good. But patience needed here. Try from 2024.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Virna 2018 Barolo Sarmassa sources its fruit from a fully south-facing site planted to 50-year-old vines. The wine offers a twofold delivery of both power and grace. The fruit is finely nuanced with forest berry and wild plum, but there are chalky mineral sensations with plenty of blue flower and fragrant tea leaf. The tannins give firm support.
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Decanter
Virna Borgogno is all about traditional winemaking, with 100% destemming and crushing, 20 days of maceration on the skin in stainless steel tanks, and a relatively short ageing of 18 months in large oak casks. A filigreed nose of pomegranate introduces great vibrancy on the palate, extracted yet full of sucrosity and fruit pulp, with some restrained blood orange. The tannins are refined and poised on the zesty dried cherry and pot pourri finish, again displaying this sort of glycerol veneer.
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.