2010 Italy Piedmont Barolo

Wine critics all over the world have expressed great praise for the 2010 Barolo vintage. This, one of Italy’s most revered and respected wines, made from the characterful Nebbiolo grape varietal, benefited enormously from the relatively cool growing season that characterised 2010 for much of this part of the country.

The Barolos of 2010 possess all of the positive attributes that one might expect from a late-ripening, cool season vintage. This means plenty of sharp fruit flavour alongside a heightened aromatic quality, and a body which will age beautifully for years, even decades when cellared in the bottle. July brought higher than expected temperatures, and this has resulted in an exciting level of richness and depth, and the wines of this vintage seem to have a lot more tannic body than in previous years. Many people have reported that the grapes harvested in 2010 in Barolo were slightly smaller than usual, which probably explains why the tannins were stronger this year - however, this means more ageing potential and more complexity in the glass, too.

2010 was a remarkable year for Barolo because, despite a few underperforming vineyards, the overall quality of the wine of this vintage was exceedingly high, and in comparison with 2009, the vintage was considerably more exciting. This is perhaps a little surprising, as the harvest took place in October - a very wet month in 2010, and that the top wineries did very well to handle - which is generally considered a very normal time frame in which to harvest Nebbiolo grapes, and as such, the vintage was expected to yield few surprises. All in all, 2010 Barolo is a vintage which will appeal to classicists and lovers of this fine, Italian varietal, and is set to become something of a modern classic for those looking to keep some choice bottles in their cellars for the coming years.