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I often find myself frustrated tasting through hundreds of wines a week. Too boring, to ripe, to technical, just no fun. Speeding through a trade tasting of wines from around the world, I was about ready to walk out when I spied a few wines that made me pause. Paolo Scarvino’s Baroli. The afternoon turned into an epic success. In front of me lay a cluster of real wines. Cru, single vineyard, Barol0s this beautiful are less common than you think! These were wines that inspired, poured by Riccardo who clearly knew what he was talking about, lived it, breathed it. It seems passion runs through the veins of the entire business!
Looking at Scavino’s website I found these words which sum up the Paolo Scavino wines:
“Through over 60 years of experience his focus has been to invest on important cru of Nebbiolo to show the uniqueness of each terroir.
Their work is inspired by the love and respect they have for their territory and they pursue purity of expression, complexity and elegance for their wines from the three local grapes Dolcetto, Barbera and Nebbiolo.”
The most important words: respect, purity of expression, complexity, and elegance.
Combine these with a winemaking approach that clearly demonstrates the wisdom that only time and experience can afford a winemaker, and, the results are individual wines of great personality and intrigue. These are the kind of wines that shift you from very good to great.
“He has an open, sunny face and looks at you with confidence because he knows he will never find the words to defend his world but that his wines can defend themselves… He seems an old-fashioned man but he chose to be a winegrower and knows how to observe progress without any conservative reactionary. For each wine produced, depending on the vintage, the right path is chosen without blindly following tradition and without passively following every innovation. He does not love excess” – Luigi Veronelli, I vignaioli storici, volume n.3, testi di Nichi Stefi, Mediolanum Editori Associati, 1988
With a clear transition underway to his daughters Enrica and Elisa it looks like Paolo Scavino will be in good hands for decades to come.
Enrico Scavino, along with his daughters Enrica and Elisa, hit it out of the park in both 2019 and 2020. These are some of the most impressive wines I tasted on my fall trip to Piedmont. Readers will want to take a look at the notes, as they convey a better sense of each wine than any broader comments can. There are plenty of highlights in both 2019 and 2020, but they aren’t the same wines. That’s just a reflection of how small vineyard sites respond to the unique qualities of each vintage.
Antonio Galloni Vinous
Founded in 1921 in Castiglione Falletto, Paolo Scavino under the guidance of Enrico, and, now his daughters, Enrica and Elisa have amassed a superb collection of Cru vineyards in Barolo, representing 20 of 29 hectares with parcels across each of the communes.
These are some of the best sites across Barolo. Click the map to link to an interactive page on Scavino’s website.
The 2019 Barolo Bricco Ambrogio is a pretty tightly-wound wine for a site that has produced much more open-knit Barolos. Floral, savory and mineral notes dominate, while fruit is pushed into the background. I am surprised to see acids and tannins so prominently on display. It will be interesting to see if this ever softens. Drink 2024-2037
The 2019 Barolo Bricco Ambrogio (with 6,800 bottles made) needs more time to open. With fruit from the village of Roddi, this expression tends to be more accessible overall, with dark cherry, dried raspberry, spice and earthy iris root. Like some of the other wines in this set of releases, the aromas had difficultly coming out at the time I tasted these samples. Drink 2024-2040
Where in the world does the magic happen?
Paolo Scavino
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