2016 Barolo Brunate

La Morra. Tasted blind. Mid ruby. Lifted nose with hints of oak and a little prickly/peppery and with quite a bit of fruit power underneath. Still very compact yet with enormous concentration and lots of juice on the finish. Plenty of grainy tannins too, but all will eventually come together with more bottle age, which this needs. (WS)

The 2016 Barolo Brunate is the most Nebbiologgiante of these new releases from Marco Marengo. As you would expect of a wine from the Brunate cru, the wine opens to a dark, sultry and beautifully saturated color with red brick or crimson highlights. The bouquet follows the Nebbiolo playlist faithfully with bright aromas of dried cherry, dark fruits, plums, moist earth, licorice and savory tobacco. Whereas Marengo's other two Barolo releases (the Barolo classico and the Bricco delle Viole) offer a stronger floral signature with hints of white pepper, this Barolo from a one-hectare plot (with limestone calcareous soils at 350 meters above sea level) is focused on dark fruit, spice and leather. It also shows a significant tannic structure and dense fiber that arguably makes this a more important or full-bodied alternative. In short, there is considerably more power and strength in this beautiful wine, and it should hold in your cellar for 20 years or more. Only 5,000 bottles were made.

The 2016 Barolo Brunate is soft, perfumed and very pretty. Sweet tobacco, cedar, mint, dried flowers and anise all grace this expressive, mid-weight Barolo. Overall, this is a decidedly lightweight, perfumed style of Brunate, a site where the wines tend to be richer, deeper, and more powerful; I would prefer to drink it over the next decade, give or take.