Terre del Barolo DOCG 2016

Vinet

Can you really have a Barolo as a house wine? Of course you can! To find the perfect red wine, we went to Italy´s most sought after wine region, Piedmont (again :-). Here we teamed up with Piedmont´s best cooperative, Terre del Barolo, to get hold of the best nebbiolo grapes from the fantastic vintage of 2016. The grapes included in the wine comes from three growers in three different villages: Serralunga d´Alba, La Morra and Monforte d´Alba – and we know exactly which vineyards the grapes come from. Mixing several different vineyards in your house wine barolo is a traditional way to achieve a good balance. In our first edition, the grapes from La Morra contribute with perfume and elegance, while Monforte and Serralunga stand for strength, structure and roughness. We would like to believe that the wine is peaking right now, but that there also is potential for at least another ten years of storage!

The grapes and the process
Nebbiolo grapes are left to soak with the skin for 20 days to leach out the taste, color and tannins. The wine is then stored in large oak barrels, so-called ”botti”, for at least 18 months. These huge old oak barrels give no taste to the wine but they let the wine breathe gently throughout the storage process. After storage, the wine is bottled where the storage continues until the day you pull out the cork.

Food and drinking tips
Barolo is best enjoyed together with food. Even though we like to categorize it as an elegant wine, there is an underlying structure and roughness that needs to be taken care of. The easiest way to do this is with uncomplicated food in season where salt and fat are important components. The rule that ”large” wines need simple food is applicable here. Try classics like tajarin pasta, butter and truffles or why not a simple risotto with summer mushrooms?
At the time of writing (May 2022), and for another year or so, Barolo DOCG 2016 is in a very good drinking phase. Given the age of the wine, it may need some breathing in the carafe before serving it in a large burgundy glass. If you have the wine in a wine cooler or a wine cellar, the temperature there, usually around 13 degrees, is perfect for corking immediately. It’s better that you serve the wine a little too cool so you can follow the temperature rise in the glass. The optimum temperature for our barolo is 16-17 degrees.

Producenten

Terre Del Barolo is a quality-driven cooperative in Piedmont that consists of 300 winegrowers with over 600 hectares of vineyards. The cooperative has wineries in some of the best locations such as La Morra, Castliglione Falletto and Serralunga d’Alba, which makes it possible to buy high quality wines. Each individual vineyard is vinified individually and 100 percent traceable to each grower. Terre del Barolo also has a good reputation for paying its members well for their grapes.