Barolo Brunate DOCG 2015 Ceretto

The 2015 Barolo Brunate is yet another silky and fine red wine with perhaps a tiny bit more structure and firmness at the back than the other single-vineyard offerings from Ceretto. It is beautifully accessible and oh so fine and elegant. The wine is aged in 300-liter French oak (with 10% new oak) for 12 months, followed by 24 months in Austrian oak casks. I absolutely love this wine. It's a cru that will impress at any wine-tasting party, or I can picture it at dinner with a deliciously rare steak au poivre. Some 13,000 bottles were made.

I write this introduction now that a few weeks have passed since I tasted and reviewed these samples from Ceretto. With the benefit of that distance in time, I can say that no set of wines in this entire article on Barolo and Barbaresco has made a stronger impact on me than these. I am awestruck by the extreme quality, grace and elegance presented here. I have no doubt that this is the strongest set of new Ceretto wines I have ever had the privilege to taste. I notice that all the wines are united by an extreme level of silkiness and spot-on tannic management. It is truly something exceptional. Among these new vintages, we also have a new member of the family. Ceretto debuts its 2015 Barolo Bussia from Monforte d'Alba, now adding a wine from a fifth important township in the Barolo appellation. They already produce Barolos from Bricco Rocche in Castiglione Falletto, Cannubi San Lorenzo in Barolo, Brunate in La Morra and Prapò in Serralunga d'Alba. It's hard to choose a favorite, and all these wines—even the Prapò from heavier soils—deliver that extreme silkiness that caught my eye and won my heart.

Very attractive red cherries and berries with plenty of sweetly fragrant spice and warm stones. This offers exceptional power and rich, ripe fruit on the palate. Really balanced and succulent with seamlessly arranged tannins. So good. Drink or hold.

The 2015 Barolo Brunate is a powerful, muscular wine that is going to need a number of years to come around. Sinewy tannins enshroud a core of deep fruit as this heady, layered Barolo gradually opens in the glass. Orange peel, star anise, mint, pine and dried flowers add striking aromatic complexity, but it is the wine's staying power and overall structure that leave the deepest impression. The 2015 Brunate is shaping up to be stellar. That's pretty much all there is to it.