The Auswine Forum

Keep a few notes together and avoid a spread. Ceretto! No doubt a polarizing producer considering its heavy oak regime though I find older bottles can see the oak nicely in support.


Ceretto Brunate Barolo 2008- Awkward wine at the moment and it took a few hours aeration and half the bottle to get it presenting right. There was a definite oak shell until the fruit coaxed out to play and it seems a tad heavy for La Morra- I have enquired with the winery if the vintage includes fruit from Rocche.

At the wine's best, orange tang overtones, mint in cherry liquer, darker, spicy licorice fruit, menthol and French Oak notes. Medium to full, better integrated on the palate with red cherry, chinato and dark fruits. Tannins are woody and choking, needing another decade to pull through.

91pts+

Dear Jamie,

thank you very much for your interest towards Ceretto wines!
It's not a question of fruit combined; it's a little complicated but I try to explain.
From the beginning of the production of Barolo single-vineyards and Barbaresco single-vineyards until 2009 vintage, all the labels contained two names, the first being the name of the Ceretto's Estate, the second the name of the vineyard where the grapes came from.

Barolo Bricco Rocche (Estate) Bricco Rocche (vineyard)
Barolo Bricco Rocche (Estate) Brunate (vineyard)
Barolo Bricco Rocche (Estate) Prapò (vineyard)

Barbaresco Bricco Asili (Estate) Bricco Asili (vineyard)
Barbresco Bricco Asili (Estate) Bernardot (vineyard)

To make everything easier, starting from 2010 vintage, we changed the labels to show only Ceretto and the proper name of the vineyard:

Ceretto Barolo Bricco Rocche
Ceretto Barolo Brunate
Ceretto Barolo Prapò

Ceretto Barbaresco Asili (without Bricco)
Ceretto Barbaresco Bernadot (without r)

I hope to have clarified the question but please do not hesitate to contact me again if you need further information.

Best Regards

I would expect that the change in naming was forced on them, as this is exactly the period that saw the greater rigidity in vineyard naming, where a clearly defined geographical hierarchy was enforced. Most noticeably this prevented two single vineyards being named on the label e.g. Giuseppe Rinaldi's Brunate-Le Coste, however IIRC you could name a designated sub-plot, as long as it was within the named vineyard, and that was named on the label as well.

Thus Ceretto in naming the vineyard associated with the winery (Bricco Rocche), meant they would in theory be breaking the rules about naming two different single vineyards when labelling their Brunate, Asili etc. wines.

I don't know how hard they fought, or maybe they just felt it was a good anyway to avoid confusion. After all there are other producers who have single vineyard names wholly or partially included in their winery names e.g. Moccagatta, Parusso, Pira and none are changing their names.

regards
Ian

p.s. Jamie, there is a typo in the title.