2011 Marcarini Single Vineyard Barolo 6-Bottle Collection 750 ml

94pts and an Olfactory Night to Remember

The first time we tasted Marcarini Barolo “La Serra” and “Brunate” was on a Tuesday night in 1982. It was as close as we’d ever get to wine club. Ten of us — all waiters — put 15 bucks a week into a communal jar, and one guy was charged with defining the lineup and making the purchases. A few of those evenings are indelibly stamped in our olfactory memories. Piedmont Night was one of them.

All the top names were in attendance. Gaja was there, as was Conterno Monfortino. There was an entry from Luigi Einaudi, the statesman-lawyer turned winegrower. Cavallotto was represented, as was Giuseppe Mascarello’s famed “Monprivato.”

The Einaudi and Cavallotto wines were the most old-school, already brickish color, prematurely oxidative. The entry from Angelo Gaja was surely the most carefully chiseled, an early look at the modernism that would soon grip the region. The 1978 “Monfortino” was unapproachable out of the gate, but slowly peeled away its rough edges, yielding to the aromatic fireworks that continue to sparkle in Barolo’s most priceless micro-cuvée.

But even as some in the room somehow reveled in the dried-flower toughness of Einaudi, it would be the 1978 Marcarini Barolo “Brunate” that most impressed the Burgundian palates. Here’s why.

If you’ve never been to Piedmont, never really studied “Barolo’s Bowl,” it’s time to book your flight. Nowhere on the world’s wine trails are the winemakers so iconoclastic. And nowhere are the mineral underpinnings of the soils so revealing of the structural DNA of the wines at hand.

Begin in Serralunga d’Alba, where the ground is packed with hard sandstone. Here we find the most aromatic Barolos, but particularly in cool vintages, it often takes years for wines to soften and shed their hard-nosed exterior. Move clockwise to the clay and limestone of Monforte d’Alba. These deeper soils make for darker, riper Nebbiolo, and rounder, more pliant Barolos.

Continue on to Novello and the village of Barolo until you reach picturesque La Morra. Here the soils are richer, the limestone leaning towards marl. These warmer soils make for more generosity and, in warm vintages, a kind of red-berry voluptuousness more akin to Gevrey-Chambertin than Piedmont. In the warm summer of 2011, Marcarini — long the superstar estate of La Morra — turned out two rich, plush, decidedly Burgundian Barolos off of their “Brunate” and “La Serra” parcels — true to our memory of Piedmont Night 1982, wines that would feel perfectly at home in a lineup of Gevrey-Chambertins and Chambolle-Musignys.

The 2011 Marcarini Barolo “Brunate” is vivid ruby, infused with ethereal, floral aromas of small red fruits, rose petals, and thyme. Rich and sweet on the attack, silken in texture, filled with ripe raspberry and black cherry. After two hours in oversized Riedel, like all excellent vintages of Brunate, the wine just adds weight and complexity, finishing with excellent cut and refined tannins. Drink now-2025.

The 2011 Marcarini Barolo “La Serra” is also bright ruby. Sweet aromas of raspberry, sweet spice, and pine needles. Rich, sweet, and pliant on the attack, filled with raspberry and dark cherry preserves. Despite the plush texture and softness when first poured, two hours after decanting, the 2011 “La Serra” seems to bend back into itself, hardening, firming up, showing far more mineral complexity and energy, arguing brilliantly for a decade of cellar slumber.

Matching 94-point ratings from James Suckling, Wine Spectator’s former European bureau chief. Offered only in 6-bottle collections, comprised of three bottles of each single-vineyard wine. $65 on release. Just $45 today — ONLY on WineAccess. Shipping, as always, is included.