2020 Enzo Boglietti, Barolo DOCG “Brandini” La Morra, Piemonte, Italy.
The Boglietti Barolo Brandini 2020 was a striking, beautifully ruby/garnet hued and exotically perfumed wine in the glass with silken tannins and carrying its ripe fruit well, belying the hot difficult year it was born from and it was wildly delicious long into the aftertaste. The full bodied palate handles its weight very nicely, with nice savory and earthy elements in the background providing a good contrast to the intense floral dimension and overt fruit, which was classic Nebbiolo waves of macerated black cherry, damson plum, briar laced raspberry and grilled orange, along with the lightened seeped rose petal, sticky lavender, tarry licorice, crushed chalk, minty alpine herbs, cedar and lingering mure. I had not seen, heard of or sampled these Enzo Boglietti wines before my recent tasting with Linda Boglietti at the Slow Wine tour stop in San Francisco and I was left very impressed with my experience. This small winery has access to some pedigreed grapes for a limited series of Cru Barolo, including Fossati, Brunate and the Brandini, seen here, as well as their basic Barolo bottling from La Morra. The Brandini comes from vines planted between 1999 and 2002 facing the cooler west and up at 400 meters above sea level with calcarious soils, all farmed with sustainable and organic practices, making for this wine’s distinction, underlying acidity and terroir driven character. I would suggest some hearty food choices here with this Brandini Barolo, as it is not shy at 14.5% and its expressive nature will be best rewarded with cuisine to match, drink this wine from 2026 to 2035.
The Azienda Agricola Enzo Boglietti label was all new to me and I was excited to try the wines from this small La Morra estate, with this Brandini and their Brunate cru offerings being standouts, even in an exceptionally warm vintage, with beautiful, as noted above aromatics and elegant structures to go along with some ripe fruit density. This was excellent work in a tough year and these are wines that will impress and age nicely for another decade in the bottle. The Boglietti label began in 1991, when for the first time the family decided to make and bottle Barolo from the fruit coming from their own vineyards. These 3 hectares, includes small parcels of Brunate and Boiolo in La Morra, which were partly the inheritance from their grandfather and are set on silty clay soil, sub-alkaline, with limestone marl and with very little organic matter with La Morra’s good elevation that heightens balance and aromatic lift, as seen here. While known for these Barolo wines, I hear the Dolcetto and Barbera offerings here at Boglietti are fabulous too, and I look forward to checking them out when I get a chance. For their Boglietti Barolo wines, and for this 2020 Brandini Cru, the grapes were careful sorted both in the vineyard and in the cellar, fully de-stemmed and macerated in cool temperature controlled stainless vat with fermentation done spontaneous with native yeasts. After fermentation, about 20 days, the Nebbiolo was racked off to large Botti, where t matured for 18 months before going into bottle, where it was rested banother 8 months in the cellars. I’m not sure how much of the Enzo Boglietti wine actually comes to the States, but I will certainly be looking for it and I would not hesitate to recommend them to any Piemonte enthusiasts.
($59 Est.) 92 Points, grapelive