By Neil Duarte

If you are one of those wine lovers who prefers wineries that have been in business for a very long period, Tenuta Carretta’s wines may be a good choice for you. Located in the Roero Valley of Piedmont in the town of Piobesi d’Alba, north of the city of Alba, Tenuta Carretta has been in winemaking since 1467. This year it celebrates its 555th year of operation. The winery is owned by the Miroglio family and has properties in both the Roero and Langhe valleys — a total of 70 hectares of vineyards. Tenuta Carretta produces a number of white and red wines featuring local grapes, but I will today review only two of their single-vineyard red offerings.

The first wine was a 2017 Garassino Barbaresco DOCG, a 14% alcohol, 100% Nebbiolo grape offering. This single-vineyard wine was aged for a minimum of 24 months with 18 months in oak barrels and 6 months in the bottle. The result was a wine that was deep garnet in color with a light fruit nose. The Grassino finished medium long and smooth. It was an excellent example of a Barbaresco and I rated it a 92/93.

Next was a 2016 Casina Ferrero Barolo DOCG, a 14% alcohol, single vineyard wine made from 100% Nebbiolo grapes. The Cascina Ferrero was aged for 24 months in oak barrels and a further 9 months in the bottle. This wine was a deep garnet in color with a light but complex nose. It finished medium and very smooth with soft tannins. I liked this elegant European style wine and rated it a 93.

As you can see from my ratings above, I thought that the Tenuta Carretta wines that I tasted were very good and well worth trying.

Thanks to Paola Chiapasco at Wellcom Marketing for arranging for Tenuta Carretta to send me samples of these wines for tasting. I thank the Miroglio family and their team for allowing me to taste their wines and highly recommend these.