Experience the singular and extraordinary terroir of Barolo’s Ravera Cru when you access a twin-pack featuring Elvio Cogno’s leading cuvée, the 2016 Ravera Barolo (awarded 99-points by Kerin O’Keefe of Wine Enthusiast), alongside the polished and elegant 2016 Cascina Nuova (a must for Barolo first-timers).
In this pack, you will find one bottle each of:
Elvio Cogno Ravera, Barolo 2016
Elvio Cogno Cascina Nuova, Barolo DOCG 2016
From the estate that proved the extraordinary quality of the Ravera subzone, this compelling wine opens with heady scents of rose, iris, perfumed berry, new leather and camphor. Focused and full bodied, the precise palate is delicious and firmly structured, featuring ripe red cherry, crushed raspberry, licorice and tobacco framed in tightly knit fine-grained tannins. Fresh acidity keeps it beautifully balanced and lends youthful tension.
99 points, Wine Enthusiast (September 2020)
Crystalline purity to this Barolo with red currants, fruit tea, lemons, freshly squeezed oranges and rosemary. Medium-to full-bodied with inward-looking, sophisticated tannins that thread vibrant red fruit in ribbon-like shapes.
95 points, JamesSuckling.com (August 2020)
Of the many great contributions made by the winemaking team at Elvio Cogno, perhaps the greatest is the importance they brought to the Ravera cru of Novello. Little-known before their efforts, this vineyard has risen in high regard in recent years and continues to show impressive potential. The 2016 Barolo Ravera offers an important education in why this site deserves the spotlight. The wine shows terrific balance and depth, with rich fruit aromas framed by smoke, tar, ferrous earth and tangy licorice. The tannins are softly contoured, and the wine moves over the palate with profound length. Interestingly, two Nebbiolo clones, Lampia and Michet, are blended to make this wine.
97+ points, Wine Advocate (July 2020)
The 2016 Barolo Ravera shows all of the energy and tension this site is so well-known for. Penetrating acids and veins of tannin give the Ravera its drive and overall feel. Naturally, the 2016 is going to need at least a few years to be at its best, but it has tremendous breeding and character to burn. White pepper, mint, sweet red cherry and citrus add to the wine's high-toned profile. This is another stellar wine from Cogno.
94 points, Vinous (February 2020)
A compact, dense red, both in terms of fruit and tannins. Cherry, strawberry, iron, tobacco and tar flavors hold court while the vivid acidity and beefy tannins lend structure, with terrific length. Everything is in the right place, this just needs time to harmonize.
97 points, Wine Spectator (November 2020)
Novello. Beautifully lifted, perfumed and concentrated. Almost an explosion of fresh, crushed, sweet, red fruit. Great purity of fruit with firm tannins that never dominate. Vibrant acidity and succulence on a full, tannic, yet endlessly fine palate.
18+ points, JancisRobinson.com (November 2019)
100 points, "I migliori 100 Vini e VIgnaioli d’Italia”, Corriere della Sera, by Luca Gardini and Luciano Ferraro
Rose, woodland berry and baking spice shape the nose along with crushed mint notes on this fragrant red. The savory, polished palate boasts succulent raspberry, ripe strawberry and white pepper before taut tannins and bright acidity reveal a firm, elegant structure. Star anise lingers on the finish.
96 points, Wine Enthusiast (September 2020)
Of the four Elvio Cogno Baroli out on the market now, this wine is the most immediate and accessible of the bunch. Production is an ample 20,000 bottles. The 2016 Barolo Cascina Nuova is a terrific wine with impeccable balance. The bouquet offers dark fruit aromas, licorice, smoke, tar and spice. These aromatic pieces slide together with precision to create an intriguing and multifaceted puzzle. It shows good fruit weight and concentration, reinforced by firm tannins, freshness and a silky mouthfeel. This is a terrific go-to Barolo from a classic vintage. The wine is fermented in stainless steel and then ages for two years in botte grande made with Slavonian oak.
94 points, Wine Advocaste (July 2020)
A layered and transparent red with dark-plum, peach and cherry aromas and flavors. It’s full and wonderfully integrated with excellent tannins that melt into the wine. Needs at least four or five years to open. A beautiful Barolo for the cellar.
95 points, JamesSuckling.com (December 2020)
Cogno's 2016 Barolo Cascina Nuova is absolutely gorgeous. Pliant and expressive on the palate, the 2016 has a touch more mid-palate sweetness and texture than in the past, when the wine has been more nervous in feel. Sweet red cherry, blood orange, mint, wild flowers, cedar, sweet tobacco and anise all open up effortlessly. Silky tannins add to its considerable immediacy and appeal. This is such a pretty wine in its peer group and also a terrific example of how attractive more modestly priced Barolos are in 2016.
92 points, Vinous (February 2020)
An elegant style, displaying cherry, licorice, menthol and tar aromas and flavors, this is harmonious and very approachable now, yet there is sufficient structure for this red to age well too. Fine length.
93 points, Wine Spectator (November 2020)
Novello. Lustrous mid ruby. Signature depth of fruit combined with finesse. Spice and minerals, cherry and raspberry with a suggestion of liquorice. There is a certain leggerezza but at the same time profound and deep but without being heavy. Fine, firm long grainy tannins clinging to the fruit. Composed energy. Easily one of the best-buy wines of the vintage – should be.
17.5 points, JancisRobinson.com (November 2019)
Over the last several vintages the estate of Elvio Cogno has unequivocally thrust
itself into the pantheon of top Barolo makers. Following extensive experience at the Marcarini estate in la Morra, which Cogno co-founded with Giuseppe Marcarini, Cogno returned to his hometown of Novello in 1991, one of the Barolo zone’s eleven villages. Marcarini’s passing and the commercial approach of his grandchildren, the inheritors, left Cogno feeling rudderless. Cogno’s new mission was simple: to revive the most important estate in the town’s greatest–Ravera!
To say that Cogno succeeded is an understatement.
The estate is comprised of eleven hectares, producing 37,000 bottles annually. It is situated right in the middle of the Ravera cru, propitiously facing south-south-east at 380 metres above sea level. Friable calcareous chinks segue to prized solid limestone. Each Cogno wine hails from Ravera with vine age, parcel, soil structures and clonal makeups differentiating them. And what wines!
Cogno is as noteworthy for the eponymous Barolo Ravera as for the brisk Barolo Cascina Nuova, hewn of younger vine material. Yet it is often the Barolo Riserva Vigna Elena, crafted with the rare Nebbiolo sub-variety Rosé from a sandier plot, that blows minds! The Cogno estate is as daring as it is consistently excellent.
The estate is now run by Elvio’s daughter Nadia and son-in-law Valter Fissore. Fissore learned the ropes under Elvio, the master. Following a flirtation with modernity, Fissore has come to embrace a traditional gait incorporating a return to large Slavonian casks and ambient fermentations using the hallowed submerged cap technique, all in the presence of impeccably ripe fruit to facilitate noble tannins. Abstemious yields, attenuated macerations and minimal sulphur-dioxide as a means to encapsulate a culture of organic viticulture, while expressing the most prized plots of Ravera, are de rigeur.
