San Silvestro Barolo Patres 2022
£23.45
The wine
A stylish and traditionally styled Barolo, with expressive aromas of dried fruit, roses and tar. The deep fruits are layered with earthy minerality on a smooth, mouth-filling palate, and sweet tannins weave through to a very long, elegant finish.
Barolo requires thirty-eight months of ageing, eighteen of them in wood, before it may be released. Patres means fathers, and the wine is blended across sites rather than drawn from a single cru, which is the older Barolo tradition. Nebbiolo is late-ripening and high in both acid and tannin, which is why the appellation insists on patience.
The producer
San Silvestro
View all San Silvestro winesFour generations at Novello, in the heart of the Langhe. Giovanni Sartirano founded San Silvestro in 1871, and the estate is run today by cousins Paolo and Guido from vineyards across the Langhe, Roero and Monferrato.
Novello is one of the eleven communes of Barolo and among its highest, which matters increasingly as vintages warm: altitude extends the ripening season and preserves the acidity and perfume that make Nebbiolo worth the trouble. The family also work the region's less celebrated grapes, including Nascetta, a white variety native to Novello itself that had almost vanished by the 1990s and is now grown by a small group of local producers determined to keep it.
The family hold Equalitas certification for sustainable cultivation, and the winemaking is modern in polish while staying faithful to what each site gives. Barbera, Nebbiolo, Cortese and Moscato all feature alongside the Barolo, and the range travels a good deal further than the local market it once served.
