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Barolo is often considered one of Italy’s finest wines. It is a red DOCG wine made in the Piedmont region of Northern Italy. As such it is well-regulated, made with only the Nebbiolo grape, from vines planted on slopes with the proper orientation, and covered in calcareous-clay soils.

Calcareous clay is soil that is often chalky, and generally rich in lime. As in with any grape, the type of soil (and overall environment) the fruit is grown from offers various flavor and quality elements to the juice eventually made from it. The ground Barolo is grown in is thought to help temper Nebbiolo’s strong acidity adding a little more softness to the juice grown in the region. The temperatures of this Nebbiolo region are also taken to soften the heat of the juice as well.

Barolo is known to be a long-aging wine, doing well with spending ten years and longer in the bottle. It’s flavors are often associated with notions of tar, and roses, with hints of red fruit.

Being shown in the half-bottle, this particular Parusso Barolo is ready to drink. I recommend letting it decant for some time–it tastes lovely straight to the glass, but the menthol flavors that showed at first softened considerably opening to more dark fruit, with light vegetal elements.

Wonderful tannins here.

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If you’re in Flagstaff, this wine is available in the full bottle (which is said to show less of the menthol and more of the fruit than the half-bottle I tasted due to the difference in aging qualities shown in the differing bottle sizes) at The Wine Loft, Flagstaff, AZ.

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