2019 Agricola Brandini La Morra, Barolo DOCG “R56” La Morra Estate, Piemonte, Italy.
The 2019 version of Brandini’s R56 Barolo is highly aromatic and shows off a wonderfully clean expression of varietal and terroir with bright acidity and a core of silken tannin, making for an elegantly styled, but deeply complex Barolo. This ruby/brick red Nebbiolo, not as dense of ripe as the 2020, still grabs your attention with its purity of firm and exceptional length, giving crushed vine picked berries, damson plum, cherry and strawberry fruit on the poised full bodied palate, accented by hints of resin, licorice, minty herb, rose oil and violets. This wine comes from the Bagnasco’s own Brandini Cru (R56) that has great high elevation influence, giving their wines a prestigious calcareous terroir backbone. It was great to meet up with winemaker Giovanna Bagnasco and taste through her wines again, last Fall, with a focus on her Barolo offerings, which all were stunning efforts from a range of vintages and crus, especially this one. Gio has introduced about 50% whole cluster this R56 Barolo, with the whole bunch ferment, with stems, is kept separate durning the primary fermentation and maceration, that is done in temperature controlled stainless steel vats. The two lots are blended post alcoholic fermentation and then the wine is matured for about 24 months in Slovonian oak, after which the wine is then cellared in bottle the required amount of time before release.
The Agricola Brandini La Morra Estate, as noted in my prior reviews, is owned by Piero Bagnasco and run by his daughters, Giovanna and Serena, it is a new producer for me and in fact they are a pretty recent venture, just starting back in 2007, they have a tiny collection of prime Barolo vines and I found the wines to be beautifully made and very exciting. Durning my latest winemaker tasting with Giovanna Bagnasco, she told of her journey and growth as a winemaker, which included many visits to Burgundy and Champagne, where she became convinced that with climate change and in the search for elegance in Nebbiolo, that whole cluster was part of the solution, along with a re-think on farming in Piemonte’s historic Barolo zone. Gil said that instead of going full out for concentration and ripeness, there needs to be a more nuanced approach and canopy management is very key in warm years to give the grapes the best conditions to achieve the balance and heath that she believes are key to great wine. Her latest efforts show this finesse and purity she’s looking for and these are very exciting wines that see mostly neutral format large 20HL Slovanian botte, to promote transparency. She also said that she prefers to get he wines out of cask early to preserve freshness and aromatics, which you can clearly see in her 2019 and 2020 Barolo releases. The vitality and crisp lines of the Brandini 2019s are hard to not give the nod to in terms of what I enjoy best, and this R56 is a beauty, I definitely hope to re-visit it in a few years time.
($108 Est.) 96 Points, grapelive