Letting the fruit sing
Barolo is a visually dazzling place. Receding hilltops move in and out of view, sinuous valleys disappear round the corner, and on clear days the Alps can appear on the horizon. Simone Fiorino laughed as I told him I'd struggled to keep my eyes on the road while driving to meet him. He said he was used to it. Simone is part of the fourth generation of his family farming and winemaking here, and those deep roots explain the long-term ethos that drives his family: careful vineyard and winery work, a respect for tradition and the environment, an openness to innovation. Combine that with an excellent portfolio of vineyard plots from varied soils, microclimates and exposures across the north and east of Barolo, and it's no wonder the Grimaldi wines are so good.
Simone and his sister Martina work side by side with their parents Bruna and Franco. It has been a dynamic last decade for the family, with a switch to organics, a new cellar, and the next generation stepping up - and their wines have been getting better and better. 2017 saw a warm, ripe year across Barolo, and there is a joyful, generous sweetness to the 2017 Grimaldis. Sometimes young Barolo can veer towards the austere, but that's absolutely not the case with these. They are also a million miles away from the overoaked, overextracted wines that became the mode in Barolo in the 1990s; these wines are all about letting the fruit sing.
Camilla is their traditional blend, produced from fruit grown on diverse soils (limestone, sandstone, clay, marl) which leads to a very elegant, balanced wine, with a cool vein of freshness. From Serralunga, the 2017 Badarina is a tar-and-roses beauty; my tasting notes are packed with licquorice, cherry, thyme and cola. The floral aromatics are piercingly attractive. Bricco Ambrogio comes from a favoured spot in the only cru in the small municipality of Roddi. It is slightly fuller and darker than Badarina, with cranberry, orange, cherry and pine; it's easy to imagine the tertiary aromatics of leather, game and mushroom that will develop in time. /NT
Offered subject to remaining unsold; for shipment Autumn 2021
