2018 Barolo Vigneto Rocche
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This is my favorite wine in this group of new releases from Mauro Veglio. The 2018 Barolo Riserva Rocche dell'Annunziata (a limited release of 2,500 bottles) offers dark fruit and dried blackberry with elegant hints of dark truffle or tar. Slightly evolved aromas give this wine a leg up in terms of complexity. However, the wine also grows in finesse, showing dried currant, rose tea and iris roots the longer it stays in the glass.
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Antonio Galloni, Vinous
Antonio Galloni, Vinous
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The 2018 Barolo Riserva Rocche dell’Annunziata is a powerful, dense wine that mostly shows an intent to make a wine more in line with the style favored here in the past. Black cherry, plum, mocha, leather, licorice and espresso are all dialed up. The 2018 shows the more mid-weight structure of the year and some of the more restrained approaches that has become the norm here, and yet the oak is intrusive. To be fair, new oak is way down to 30%, but still, French oak tannins are discordant with the natural finesse of Rocche. All that said, this is still a very good wine. But it could be more than that.
The 2018 Barolo Riserva Rocche dell'Annunziata is deep, fleshy and super-expressive. There is plenty of textural resonance but without the excess oak that characterized so many previous editions. Even so, it would be nice to see a little more of the Nebbiolo translucence that this site is capable. I still find the coffee and torrefaction notes a bit distracting.