Azienda Agricola Antoniolo, Gattinara, San Francesco

Decanted at 2pm and tasted from 6-10pm. This is a brilliant ruby garnet color with no real sign of age. Nose is fragrant with red fruit and florals. Tart acidity especially early on but more mellow with 5-8 hours of air. Shows red fruits like tart cherry, cranberry, raspberry and pomegranate. Good mineral undertone. Long finish. Needs food to show best. Great with a duck confit and mushroom pasta. Needs the air to come into its own! Should last a …

2007 vintage

Been holding onto this for about 10 years, not sure what I was waiting for, but a home-cooked birthday dinner of braised oxtails with friends (after 2 years of pandemic) seemed like the right occasion. Red ruby color showing some age but at 15 years, it was totally smooth, everything was in balance. Wonderful elegance, beautiful fragrant nose of red fruit, florals, a little sawdust, a little mustiness, brought me back to wooden parquet floors from childhood. The nose kept …

2007 vintage

Focused and balanced, the wine navigates between elegant fruit and a soft tannic backbone with a long satisfying finish. Complemented a long dinner with ease. This wine is great now and should age well.

2007 vintage

This bottle was really delightful and much better than my first bottle 5+ years ago. Decanted briefly before tasting with homemade Pappardelle with a sausage, mushroom and sage sauce. It was a bright, translucent garnet. Palate and nose have a very bright and high toned wild cherry dominance with some floral aromatics. Low to moderate tannins make this easy to drink, but the acidity goes greatly with the food. Surprisingly tasty over the first couple hours but it got a …

2007 vintage

Impressive nose with focus and intensity, red raspberry must, sandalwood, incense. Wonderful entrance with Indian rice pudding. Red fruit palate, red zinger tea. Great tannins. Serious wine. Cellar for 6 more years. Paired with crab risotto.

2007 vintage

Even better than my last bottle of this wine. The depth of fruit was really striking. The tannin are a bit rugged, but there is so much depth on the frame and really well balanced at this scale. I think the touches of modernism really work for this wine. Seems to be getting better and should last a while but it offers so much pleasure now that it's worth drinking bottles now.

2007 vintage

This was really good. I don't mind the modernity in the Antoniolo wines for some reason. I like that bit of polish. They also keep a good frame of acidity to stretch and lift the deep cherry fruit. Tangy, mineral finish. Doesn't feel as solar as 2007 Barolo. Drinking well now but should gain complexity with a few more years.

2007 vintage

Drinking very well right now -- interesting to note the changes over time once out of the bottle -- really peaked about 1/2-hour after, then evolved into a less optimal, and then improved again about 3-hours out. Not positive what it means, but this certainly didn't stay constant in experience at all times after popping the cork. At the best, clearly outstanding.

2007 vintage

Bottle #2 of 5. Fantastic perfume. Love the dried cherry, wonderfully tertiary laden fruit, and dry finish.

2007 vintage

quite nice and open for drinking. tons of structure. elegant.

2007 vintage

Aging very nicely. Good fruity nose, full in the mouth with berries and a balancing earthiness, good dry finish. Complex enough in a solid, unpretentious way that will compliment a good trattoria meal. Still young, should last another 10 years.

2007 vintage

Best on night two, at the very end of the last glass - this bodes well for my other bottles in cellar. As this warms, a lovely wafting nose of ripe, warm, cherry compote, leather, varnishy/prune notes, florals and herbs. Tight, bright, acidic, red fruited and even a bit severe at first, this loosens with time and warmth to showcase the cut herbs/menthol, soil inflection, deep ripe cherries, excellent mid-palate and length, and especially the gamy/smokey/earthy complexity. This really is …

2007 vintage

Nice easy drinking Nebbiolo. Floral with roses and some earthiness. Tannic on the finish but only a little. Nicely balanced and mostly red fruit in the mid palate. Not a long term ager but just right now I think.

2007 vintage

Drank with Kim & Tina- great with lasagna

2007 vintage

Leather and leaves on the nose. Lean fruit, ample acids, and textural tannins flesh out the palate. Compared to the '07 Caremas I've had this is more tannic, structured, sharp, and masculine.

2007 vintage

Good wine

2007 vintage

All the marks of a very good wine, but still maturing. The different elements - fruit, acid, tannins and earthy depth - are pulling the wine in different directions but have the potential to be well integrated in a few years. Drink now if you have a few bottles to get some youthful brashness. Or wait 2 or 4 years for a more mature mix.

2007 vintage

Still quite youthful, but this is coming together beautifully. A gloriously floral nose - like walking through a rose garden in full bloom - mixed with the scent of freshly turned damp dark earth carries over to the palate with darker red berries, mint, anise, and a darkly inflected minerality. The fruit is sweeter and more supple than is usual in my experience with the Alto Piemonte wines, which may be a function of the warm 07 vintage, but the …

2007 vintage

This is a beautiful, slightly forward, fullish, very young Gattinara showing nuanced layers of rose, sage, and bright red cherries over excellent mineral depth. The fruit is slightly forward at this point, with the ripe 07 vintage reflected in its sweetness and heft, but the wine remains fresh with cleansing acidity and good energy on the palate. Mint, mineral and licorice mingle over very fine grained tannins on a lengthy finish turning a tad chewy and only mildly astringent on …

2007 vintage

Almost painfully young, but there is plenty of depth & complexity to both nose and palate. It's more savoury than you might find in Barbaresco, and lighter bodied as well. Liquorice, black olive, smoke and light but brooding dark fruit come through on the nose. On the palate there is a chianti-like subtle bitterness that helps show Gattinara apart from the nebbiolos further south. There is very attractive fruit, but it never dominates, partly due to very grippy tannins that …

2003 vintage

The nose is marked exhuberant bright cherry and rhubarb notes over a mineral base. Marked by extremely clean and precise flavors, very high toned on the palate. Like a crystal mountain stream of nebbiolo. Not a lot of complexity here. Would give this time to settle down.

2007 vintage

Pretty and complex nose, scented. Very lush mouth with tingling acidity and some tannin. Ageing brown fruit, spicy, some complexity but not much definition. Dense. Tasty. On a par with a decent Barbaresco. Will last and should develop - 3 hours breathing suggests quite a long time.

2003 vintage

I had this with dinner at The Engineer gastro-pub in the Primrose Hill section of London. One of the most expensive wines on the list at around £55, it was touted on the list as too good to pass up. Here are my abbreviated notes: still quite young and full of tannins; lots of leather, cedar and earthiness. The flavor range is quite narrow, having been restricted by the wine’s youth. The restaurant would be far better off tucking it …

2003 vintage

Are you sure?

Azienda Agricola Antoniolo, Gattinara, San Francesco

Vintages

No vintages

Community Reviews