Barolo, Monvigliero, 2021
Alessandria’s Monvigliero always offers a stunning combination of richness and minerality, with intensity, radiance and grip – stony, talc and chalk, with a grand scaled exalted feel – grown up, serious and long. Deeper and more complete, but more backward too – so much in reserve, one of the wines of the vintage for us. Alessandria has a sizeable 1.4ha and first bottled the wine as a single vineyard in 1978. Aged for three years in 25hl Slavonian oak casks.
critic reviews
The Paolo Scavino 2021 Barolo Monvigliero needs extra time in bottle. It reveals aromas of dried flower, rose, powdered licorice and cola. This expression is not as immediately floral as Monvigliero can sometimes be. In fact, this wine offers more heft and structure than I anticipated. It has a pretty quality of tannins, firm and chalky. The vineyard is measured at under one hectare in Verduno with southeast exposures on Sant'Agata Fossili Marl soils. Production is 4,300 bottles.
The 2021 Barolo Monvigliero is a pretty dense wine. I don't see quite the delineation or nuance of the finest wines in this range or the best wines from this site, which leads me to believe Scavino is still getting a feel for Monvigliero. For many top producers, this would be a superb wine, but in this lineup, it's in the middle of the pack. Macerated cherry, spice, tobacco and cedar struggle to emerge fully. I hope to revisit the 2021 in a few years' time.