From: Piedmont, Italy
Varietal: Nebbiolo
Taste & Critical Acclaim: “This is a wine I have jealously followed since its birth. The Luciano Sandrone 2016 Barolo Vite Talin is another superstar. This is a complete wine, with depth, intensity and a fully generous and embracing personality. It's like a warm hug. The tannins are tight and the wine needs more time to fully soften. At this young point in its life, it offers plenty of dark primary fruit, spice and black licorice.” –Monica Larner, Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, 98 points (June 2022)
“The 2016 Barolo Vite Talin is a stunning wine, just as it always has been. Over the least few years, the 2016 has gained a measure of classicism it did not show as a young wine. The purity of the flavors, the wine's balance, its pedigree, well, they are all off the charts. The Vite Talin emerges from two parcels with heavily virused vines that naturally produce a minuscule crop. It spent two years in 500-liter tonneaux and a year in cask.” –Antoni Galloni, Vinous, 98 points (November 2021)
“Barolo. Lustrous almost glowing ruby. Gorgeous nose of cherry with hints of liquorice and oak. Much more embryonic on the palate and richly tannic. Great length and balance. Energetic tannins and acidity. Much more to come. 18/20 points (WS)” –Jancis Robinson (November 2021)
About. Luciano Sandrone is one of the most iconic producers in Barolo, and his is both a well known and extraordinary story. He started to learn viticulture at the age of 14 or 15, and after years of work as a cellarman he depleted his life savings and purchased his first vineyard on the Cannubi hill in 1977, though he could only manage his land on the weekends while he continued to work. He made his first vintage in 1978, in the garage of his parents, and then spent years refining his ideas about how to make a wine of distinction and utmost quality that respected the traditions of Barolo while incorporating new ideas and understanding about viticulture and vinification. He made every vintage until 1999 at home, until the winery he constructed in 1998 was ready for use.
Sandrone's wines are sometimes described as straddling the modern and traditional styles in the region: elegant, attractive and easy to appreciate right from their first years in bottle, but with no less power and structure than traditional Barolos. Along with the extremely low yields in the vineyard and an obsessive attention to training, pruning and harvesting, Sandrone has a very rational approach in the cellar. This approach, however, is also unique and outside of simple classification: Sandrone subjects his wines to medium-length maceration period, shorter than traditional, but makes limited use of new oak in the maturation process, which takes place in 500 liter tonneaux, all signs of a more traditional approach in the cellar. The entire range of wines, all limited in production, are jewels of impeccably balanced concentration and precision, and the ability to age for long periods of time.
2016. Four years after the release of the first bottle of the 2013 vintage, Vite Talin confirms its characteristics as a unique, highly recognizable plant, whose grapes shine even brighter than their territory, year after year. Its clusters are smaller, very pruinose and of a bright colour. Accordingly, the plant is also more contained and carries less fruit. Its leaves are more indented, thick and rough, characteristic features of this Barolo, which completes the family of Sandrone’s red wines.
The winter was mild with little precipitation, which let the 2016 growing season begin earlier than usual. January and the first weeks of February were characterized by dry weather. The first rainfalls only arrived towards the end of February and the wet weather continued over the following months, resulting in a long and cool spring. The late cold influenced the vegetative restart, which arrived with a delay of ten to fifteen days compared to the seasonal average. Flowering was quick and within the expected timeframe and can therefore be called perfect by Sandrone’s standards, capable of influencing the natural evolution of Vite Talin, up until the harvest.
The ripening of the grapes was harmonious and timely, which allowed for a general homogeneity from plant to plant, from cluster to cluster and from grape to grape. This also created the right balance of sugar and acidity in the fruit and the harvest could begin earlier. Indeed, the grapes of Vite Talin were among the first to be harvested.
2016 can therefore be described as a year in which weather conditions played an important role. The shortened vegetative cycle of the vines guaranteed homogeneity and elegance, exactly in the style of Sandrone.
