Elvio Cogno Ravera Barolo 2012
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Product Details
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Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Pairs well with braised meats, stewed game, roasts and mature cheeses such as pecorino and Parmigiano Reggiano.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Lovely scents of rose petal, iris and perfumed berry slowly take shape in this striking wine. The full-bodied palate delivers ripe red cherry, licorice, white pepper, cinnamon and sage alongside firm, fine-grained tannins and fresh acidity. A mineral note wraps around the finish. Hold for even more complexity; drink 2019–2024.
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James Suckling
Opulent aromas of plum, fresh mushroom and hot stones. Even bricks. Full body, firm, and ultra-fine, delicately chewy tannins. Intense density and freshness. Drink in 2019.
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Wine & Spirits
Vincent Girardin farms this domaine under biodynamic principles, working with three stony parcels above the village where the vines average 50 years old. This wine is tight and flinty when first opened, its reduction both brightening the aroma and tightening up the raspy oak tannins. With air, the oak integrates and the wine’s freshness begins to dominate, with a complex, savory length of flavor that brings to mind the white flower scents and mineral depths of a great Champagne. Aaron Zebrook of NYC’s Le Coucou picked up on the “radiant,” high-toned aromatics: “I would want to drink this in spring,” he said, “with spring vegetables.”
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Wine Spectator
Starts out softly, with cherry, floral, licorice and earth notes, building in intensity to a long finish. Elegant yet tightly wound, featuring a compact, if long and fresh, finish. Needs time. Best from 2020 through 2034. 1,380 cases made.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Elvio Cogno 2012 Barolo Ravera sees fruit sourced from a single vineyard that spans from Barolo to the nearby Novello township (where the winery is located). The wine follows faithfully in the house style that sees an impeccable, albeit very opulent and bold aromatic profile. This wine lives up to the Cogno promise of rich, luscious fruit flavors with bold cherry, spice, leather and tobacco. Delicate tones of cola, truffle and licorice give lift at the back. The tannins are young and show some astringent tightness that needs extra time to integrate.
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The Cogno family has been making wine for four generations in Piedmont. In 1990, Elvio Cogno left a long and fruitful partnership with the venerable Barolo producer Marcarini at La Morra and bought a splendid, historic 18th-century farmhouse on the top of Bricco Ravera, a hill near Novello in the Langhe area. (Novello is one of the 11 communes in which Barolo is produced.) The farm was surrounded by 11 hectares (27.18 acres) of steeply sloped vineyards. Elvio restored the manor, converted the old granaries to wine cellars and founded his eponymous winery. For the next 20 years he devoted himself to the winemaking traditions handed down to him by his father and grandfather.
Elvio, in turn, has now passed the torch to his daughter, Nadia, and her husband, Valter Fissore, who has worked beside Elvio for 25 years. Following in the footsteps of Elvio the maestro, Elvio Cogno winery continues to produce elegant wines without altering the traditions, styles and flavors of the Langhe, with its breathtaking quilted landscape and unique grape varieties.
The Elvio Cogno winery sits at the top of Bricco Ravera, a hill near Novello in the Langhe area of Piedmont, one of the 11 communes in which Barolo is produced. Ravera is the finest cru of Novello, encircling the top of the hill and the winery, reaching a 380-meter (1,246-foot) elevation, with breathtaking views in all directions.
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.