From: Piemonte, Italy
Varietal: Nebbiolo

Winemaker Notes. A vintage like 2019 comes along only a few times in the career of a winemaker and the 3-generation Sandrone team took full advantage of the potential of this extraordinary year.
The Barolo Le Vigne 2019 lets its exceptional power shine through, waiting for its best moment to come. It will require patience! The nose is compact and full of dark fruits, spice, licorice and violet notes, closed and tightly wound but bursting with potential. The flavors are still one-dimensional at this early stage, but patience will yield a wine of great complexity and structure for long ageing. The finish is very dry with ripe tannins that seem to linger for minutes.

Taste & Critical Acclaim: 98 points Kerin O'Keefe
Rose, menthol, star anise and baking spice are just some of the aromas that appear on the gorgeous Sandrone Barolo Le Vigne 2019. Focused, elegant and savory, the vibrant palate offers juicy red cherry, spiced cranberry, crushed mint and ground clove before a licorice close. A backbone of fine-grained tannins provide support while bright acidity keeps it impeccably balanced and loaded with energy and tension. What a stunner. (6/2023)

97 points James Suckling
Very aromatic with hibiscus, crab apple, orange blossom, and ripe strawberry on the nose. Full-bodied, very layered and powerful, yet it remains very fine textured with an intense finish. Slightly more structured than before. Perhaps due to the addition of wines from a new vineyard? (6/2023)

97 points Wine Advocate
The 2019 Barolo Le Vigne is a historic blend of fruit from Baudana in Serralunga d'Alba, Villero in Castiglione Falletto, Vignane in Barolo and Merli in Novello. This year, a fifth site was added to the final blend. It is the Le Coste MGA in Barolo with south-facing exposures and 45-year-old vines in a two-hectare parcel. The backbone of this wine is Baudana, and Merli adds freshness. The wine needs more time in bottle, but already it proves generous and bold with dark fruit, spice and crushed mineral. 97+(ML) (8/2023)

97 points Vinous
The 2019 Barolo Le Vigne is pure and total seduction. Kirsch, sweet pipe tobacco, mint, cedar, dried herbs and orange peel all grace a Le Vigne built on mid-weight structure and energy. There is a feeling of youthful classicism and austerity that is so beguiling. Readers should plan on being patient, though. The 2019 won't be ready to drink anytime soon, but there is enough fruit to make me think it will be superb, in time. (AG) (1/2023)

96 points Wine Enthusiast
This wine begins shy but turns it out quickly with aromas of warmed cherries, fresh wildflowers, anise, clove and black tea. The balanced palate reveals a core of fruit with savory and earthy elements in support, all resting on a foundation of polished tannins and vibrant acidity. (JP) (12/2023)

95 points Wine Spectator
tightly wound red, with floral, cherry, iron, earth and underbrush aromas and flavors. Beefy, with the vintage's characteristic austerity and a strong grip on the finish. The tannins lend a compact feel in the end, yet this stretches out on the finish, with a core of pure fruit. (BS) (12/2023)

About. Luciano Sandrone is one of the most iconic producers in Barolo, and his is both a well-known and extraordinary story. He started to learn viticulture at the age of 14 or 15. After years of work as a cellarman he depleted his life savings and purchased his first vineyard on the Cannubi hill in 1977, though he could only manage his land on the weekends while he continued to work. He made his first vintage in 1978, in his parents’ garage, and then spent years refining his ideas about how to make a wine of distinction and utmost quality that respected the traditions of Barolo while incorporating new ideas and understanding about viticulture and vinification. He made every vintage at home until 1999, when the winery he constructed in 1998 was ready for use.

Sandrone's wines are sometimes described as straddling the modern and traditional styles in the region: elegant, attractive, and easy to appreciate right from their first years in bottle, but with no less power and structure than traditional Barolos. Along with the extremely low yields in the vineyard and an obsessive attention to training, pruning, and harvesting, Sandrone has a very rational approach in the cellar. This approach, however, is also unique and outside of simple classification: Sandrone subjects his wines to a medium-length maceration period, shorter than traditional, but makes limited use of new oak in the maturation process, which takes place in 500-liter tonneaux, all signs of a more traditional approach in the cellar. The entire range of wines, all limited in production, are jewels of impeccably balanced concentration and precision and the ability to age for long periods of time.