When the Padano Sea retreated from what is today's Langhe, it left behind layers of clay, calcareous marl, blue marl, tufa, sand, and sulfur-bearing chalk. The Barolo zone is divided into two soil subzones based on the age of the deposits. To the west, the soils around the towns of Barolo and La Morra are composed of a calcareous (limestone-rich) marl with high levels of sand -- referred to as Tortonian (11 - 7 million years ago) -- that yields aromatic, elegant, medium-bodied wines which evolve in the bottle earlier than their counterparts. The wines from the Barolo commune are thought to be more complex, and broader in texture, than the more perfumed and graceful La Morra wines. The Langhian (until the 1960s, Helvetian) soil around the communes of Serralunga d'Alba, Monforte d'Alba, and Castiglione Falletto was deposited between 16 and 13 million years ago. The soils of this zone are mostly calcareous clay marls with little sand content and produces a wine that is more structured and requires longer aging.
Cannubi is a long, gradually sloping hill which extends northeast from the village of Barolo and is contained in its entirety within the namesake commune. According to the Marchesi di Barolo website, Cannubi hill is protected from storms and extreme weather by higher neighboring hills. Both Damilano and Marchesi di Barolo point to the uniqueness of the hill in that it sits at the convergence of the aforementioned Helvetian and Tortonian soil zones resulting in "grey-blue marls rich in magnesium and manganese carbonate that, on the surface, thanks to the air and the weathering, turn into grey-white marls" (Marchesi di Barolo).
The red oval indicates location of the Cannubi hill |
Note that all of the above sub-zones have the legal right
to be called Cannubi (Sources: Map is an extract from the official Barolo map;
data from Masnaghetti's MGA |
Note that all of the above sub-zones have the legal right
to be called Cannubi.
|
Rating | Explanation | Cannubi Cru |
Exceptional | Vineyards that consistently produce distinctive wines of a very high quality, irrespective of the quality or style of the year | |
Outstanding | … often produce wines of true personality and class but do so less consistently than Exceptional vineyards | Cannubi Boschis or Cannubi Cannubi San Lorenzo or Cannubi Cannubi Valletta or Cannubi |
Noteworthy | A vineyard that over the years has proven to be the source of distinctive wines | Cannubi Cannubi Muscatel or Cannubi |
Delimited | Geographically delimited; little, no, or undistinguished track record |
I will be reprising my visit to Chiara Boschis' E. Pira e Figli in my first post on the Piedmont winery visit.
©Wine -- Mise en abyme
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