2015 Bruna Grimaldi Camilla Barolo DOCG 750 ml

When our importer friend urged us to take a bottle of this rare 2015 Grimaldi Camilla release home from a trade tasting, of course we wanted to take it, but at first we politely declined. In Italian fashion, he shoved the bottle in our backpack and shouted: “Forget about it! This won’t last!” 

What’s not to love about Italian hospitality? So, we cracked open the bottle with neighbors for a  lunch of grilled ribeyes, artichokes, and bread from Napa’s famous Model Bakery. The wine was just singing—it’s a beauty to drink today, but built to last the next five to eight years, at least. This is a bottle that encompasses all the markers that make Nebbiolo wines incredibly satisfying and a sheer pleasure to drink.

After a 30 minute decant and in the presence of the perfect meal, the wine was singing, absolutely bursting with the wild strawberries, tobacco, tar, and rosemary that typify top Barolo. 

It’s a bottle that encompasses all the markers that make Nebbiolo wines incredibly satisfying and a sheer pleasure to drink. 

These days, Italian wines are on a hot streak, getting hotter with every world-tour Gambero Rosso makes. As a result, it’s harder and harder to find top Barolo from top-flight producers without spending a fortune, which is why we’re rabid fans of Bruna Gimaldi, and why we highly recommend pouncing on this stellar cru value. 

The 2015 Bruna Grimaldi Camilla Barolo hails from the Grimaldi family’s best vineyard just north of Serralunga d’Alba, and delivers mouthwatering aromas and flavors of ripe, wild strawberries, tar, rosemary, and tobacco, with lovely mid-palate richness. James Suckling’s ode to this Nebbiolo praised the wine’s “Lovely, sweet aromas of flowers and ripe fruit,” which “follow through to a full body.” 

Grimaldi and her husband Fiorini produce three distinct wines—Badarina, Bricco Ambrogio, and Camilla—from three locations: the vineyards in Serralunga that Bruna inherited from her mother, the vineyard in Roddi that she and Franco purchased, and the family’s original property in Grinzane Cavour. 

This Camilla Barolo hails from Bruna Grimaldi’s top vineyard in the hills of Grinzane Cavour, a site she inherited from her father’s side of the family. Situated at 725 to 825 feet of elevation and oriented to the south and south-west, Camilla is located alongside the winery itself, and is the family’s most coveted site.

Made in a classic fashion with aging in large oak barrels and a regimen that eschews chemicals and machines, Grimaldi wines pay a delicious homage to Barolo’s time-honored tradition. The result is a precise and firm Barolo that delivers a ton of value for the money, whether it is destined for the dinner table or the cellar.