Schiavenza Barolo Cerretta 2017
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James
Suckling -
Wine
Enthusiast -
Wine
Spectator
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Not so intense ruby colored with orange shades. Delicate scent, dry taste. From the bricco (aka crest) of the Cerretta cru, 0.9ha at 390m altitude with a SE exposure; the soil is silty clay, highly calcareous.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Sweet strawberry with tar and bark on the nose. Full-bodied with a solid core of fruit and chewy, dusty tannins. Classic styled. Needs at least five years of bottle age. Try after 2026.
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Wine Enthusiast
Enticing aromas suggesting new leather, violet, raspberry tart and forest floor are front and center. It's young and primary but also full-bodied and delicious, featuring ripe Marasca cherry, licorice, truffle and the barest hint of game before finishing on a hint of graphite. Assertive, fine-grained tannins provide support and need a few more years to integrate. This shows real aging potential, especially for the hot vintage.
Cellar Selection -
Wine Spectator
Leather, licorice, eucalyptus and tar flavors augment the core of cherry fruit in this red, which has a light resinous note and ends with a pleasant astringency.
Other Vintages
2019-
James
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Robert
Parker
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Robert
Parker -
James
Suckling - Decanter
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Robert
Parker -
James
Suckling -
Wine
Spectator
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Wine
Spectator -
Robert
Parker -
James
Suckling
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Wine
Enthusiast -
James
Suckling
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Wine
Spectator
Schiavenza is located in Serralunga d'Alba in the heart of Piedmont's Langhe district, celebrated for its great Barolo vineyards. The estate was founded in 1956 by the brothers Vittorio and Ugo Alessandria; the estate and surrounding area were formerly part of the Opera Pia Barolo (a castle that is kind of like the Hospices du Beaune: part educational institution and part hospital) whose vineyards were traditionally worked by sharecroppers. The local dialect for sharecropper is schiavenza. Today, the estate is run by the second-generation Alessandria sisters, Enrica and Maura, and their husbands Luciano Pira and Walter Anselma.
In the vineyard, they do not use pesticides or herbicides. Harvest is manual and is conducted according to the phases of the moon. In the cellar, they use only naturally occurring yeasts, and ferment the wines in cement cisterns. In terms of aging, this is no modern barrique-aged Barolo estate: the wines here are aged for extended period of time in the traditional large Slovenian barrels called botti. The quality here is shockingly good. Schiavenza's wines are elegant, pure expressions of Nebbiolo that would embarrass many a more famous address. to the market at prices that are lower than ever.
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.