Damilano Barolo Liste 2016
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James
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Robert
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Enthusiast
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Garnet ruby red with fleeting orange reflections. Moderately intense, blackberries, licorice, tobacco and cocoa. Dry, full, with great body and persistence, austere and velvety.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This is a dense, layered 2016 with so much finesse in the quality of the tannins, which provide a very layered and vertical texture that runs across the palate. It’s full-bodied, very long and powerful, yet maintains finesse and focus. Rather tight and closed-up right now. Try after 2025.
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Wine Spectator
Cherry, plum and menthol flavors converge in this suave red, while tar, tobacco and wild herb notes add depth as this cruises to a lingering finish. Fine balance and length overall.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Damilano 2016 Barolo Liste is released one year later compared to its peers. It shows beautifully chiseled intensity, impressive depth and length. A lot of dimension and energy are locked within this bottle. The Liste (a cru located in the village of Barolo) offers fruit tones and spice, but the flavor profile of this well-structured wine is best described as mineral driven and etched. This is one for the cellar.
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Wine Enthusiast
Aromas of violet, underbush and pipe tobacco emerge from the glass. The concentrated palate offers blackberry jam, clove and toasted hazelnut alongside polished tannins and the warmth of alcohol.
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The origins of the Damilano family company dates back to over a century ago, when Guiseppe Borgogno, the great-grandfather of the current owners, started to grow and make wine from his own grapes. This tradition was kept up by Giacomo Damilano, the founder’s son-in-law, together with his children, until it was passed on to his 4 grandchildren, who very attentively manage their forefathers’ land today. The wines produced are renowned for their upright style and the estate is widely appreciated due to the strictness and passion that accompany all of the company's activities.
The vineyards, partly owned and partly leased, are situated in the most famous crus of the Langa region: Cannubi, Liste, Fossati, and Brunate, which are almost entirely cultivated with Nebbiolo da Barolo, and to a lesser extent, with Dolcetto and Barbera varietals.
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.