Azelia - Barolo Cerretta 2016 (750ml)
Vinous: 97 Points
The 2016 Barolo Cerretta brings together all the best elements of the Azelia house style. Powerful dense and dark the Cerretta has so much going for it. Black cherry plum lavender spice menthol sage and licorice all flesh out in the glass. Rich and potent in feel with tremendous nuance the Cerretta is flat-out stunning. The Scavinos started by renting this parcel in 1995 and they re-planted it in 1996. For many years all of this fruit went into the straight Barolo. Now 25 years later the estate has finally released its first single-vineyard Barolo off this site and it is a stunner.
vWine Advocate: 96+ Points
The newest single-vineyard Barolo to be released by this estate in celebration of its centennial anniversary the Azelia 2016 Barolo Cerretta offers a rich and slightly sweet quality of primary fruit with cherry wild plum and summer fig. Like many wines from Serralunga d'Alba the bouquet tends to unwind in broad sweeping motions instead of the quickly paced crescendo of high notes that you get in Castiglione Falletto for example. This wine washes over the palate with rich textural fiber (with very elegant tannins) and an open-knit fabric of dark cherry and blackberry aromas all framed by earthy tones of black truffle and iron ore. This wine represents the efforts of three decades of hard work. Luigi Scavino's father had long dreamed of making a Barolo from Cerretta but the family waited 30 years to have old well-established vines. Like the other Baroli from Azelia fermentations see submerged cap and skin maceration times are long up to 60 days. The wine ages in large oak casks for 30 months. Only 3600 bottles were made of this debut cru. Luigi Scavino's Azelia is celebrating a big milestone this year with its centennial anniversary (1920?2020). Five generations of the family have carried forth this winemaking legacy. To mark the occasion Azelia is releasing a new single-vineyard wine the 2016 Barolo Cerretta. In 1992 Luigi and his father Lorenzo started leasing a 2.5-hectare parcel in Cerretta (in Serralunga d'Alba). The father and son team replanted the site completely installing new trellising poles and wires and they ripped up the soil and added rainfall drainage. The Scavinos did all this work and made all these investments at great personal cost since the land lease would expire one day. However 12 years later in 2004 the family succeeded in purchasing the parcel. This site is very special to them as it is the first vineyard created completely from scratch with massal selection by the Scavinos. Initially the fruit was used in the classic Barolo blend (a blend of seven crus). Now nearly 30 years later Cerretta is finally bottled as a single-vineyard wine just in time to blow out 100 candles on the winery birthday cake.
