Wine Advisor
Elio Grasso, Barolo Riserva Runcot 2020
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Monica Larner
The Elio Grasso 2020 Barolo Riserva Rüncot offers a generous and layered profile with sweetness of fruit, rose, iris root, licorice and a distinctly solar character that makes it immediately engaging. There is notable volume and textural richness on the palate, where minerality and clay-driven power coexist, giving the wine both charm and depth. Drawn from a vineyard straddling Marne di Diano sandstone and Sant’Agata marl and fermented with two months of submerged-cap maceration followed by four years of aging in small oak and new barrique, this Riserva reflects extremely low yields and a deliberate choice to prioritize the charm of the vintage. Prior to the 2019 vintage, the last Riserva produced was 2016, which Gianluca Grasso held back for eight years before release. No Riserva was made in 2017, 2018, 2022, 2023 or 2024. He has chosen to release the 2020 Riserva first, with the 2019 scheduled to follow next year.
Reviewed by: Antonio Galloni
The 2020 Barolo Riserva Rüncot is an incredibly promising wine. Dark-toned black fruit, smoke, incense and a kiss of new French oak all meld together in the glass. In this early tasting, the 2020 looks like a wine on the more opulent side of the spectrum. This is going to be a fascinating wine to follow.
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.
