Wine Advisor
Elio Grasso, Barolo Ginestra Casa Mate 2018
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Monica Larner
From a vineyard located across from Gavarini Chiniera, this is a slightly more robust and concentrated wine. The 2018 Barolo Ginestra Casa Maté sources its fruit from a position at a slightly lower elevation with a bigger component of clay in the soils. The south and southeast-facing hillside is also more open to the horizon. These conditions give the Ginestra Casa Maté a broad texture and rich flavors of black and purple fruits. The wine is compact with dense texture that will relax over the next 10 years of age. Production is 12,000 bottles.
Reviewed by: Antonio Galloni
The 2018 Barolo Ginestra Casa Matè has more body than the Gavarini, but also larger-grained tannins that are pretty impenetrable. Let's see what happens in time.
Reviewed by: Antonio Galloni
The 2018 Barolo Ginestra Casa Matè shows just how challenging this vintage is for sites that are moisture retentive. Large-scaled tannins and awkward contours are impossible to escape. Game, iron, licorice, smoke, tobacco and dried herbs add to a distinctly wild, feral feel.
Reviewed by: James Suckling
Aromas of dried and fresh strawberries with some tar and cedar follow through to a medium to full body with chewy tannins that are polished and attractive. Give this three or four years to come more together, but a pretty wine for the vintage. Try after 2025.
Reviewed by: Antonio Galloni
The 2018 Barolo Ginestra Casa Matè shows just how challenging this vintage is for sites that are moisture retentive. Large-scaled tannins and awkward contours are impossible to escape. Game, iron, licorice, smoke, tobacco and dried herbs add to a distinctly wild, feral feel.
About the Producer
Elio Grasso’s History Born within an old family of Monforte d’Alba with substantial vineyards in the prestigious parts of the town, Grasso may seem destined for a career as a Barolo producer . But instead he chose a different path, at least in the early stages of adult life, choosing to work in the world of finance and living an urban existence that was decidedly different from that of the rural world in which he was born and raised. The wines of Elio Grasso The call of the land, however, eventually proved strong, and the return to Monforte d’Alba was probably only a matter of time. And what he returned to was in fact an impressive patrimony: 18 hectares of vineyards that include first-rate sites such as Chiniera , Casa Matè , and Runcot . Grasso, in fact, just in 1978, decided to ferment and age on his own the grapes of his best plots and was a pioneer in selling both a regular Barolo and also a series of crus . As a producer, Grasso has always been attentive to tradition, but, given the important experiences linked to the numerous generations of his family in the area, he has never wanted to radically transform his wines: both Chiniera and Casa Matè are aged in barrels; only the Runcot , a Riserva , ages in small barrels. Innovation, on the other hand, is represented by two other wines from the line: the excellent Barbera Martina aged in barrels and Educato , a Chardonnay fermented in barrels.
