Azienda Agricola Martino

A little off point here...as previously stated, we spend quite a bit of time in the area around Barolo. One of our favorite places to eat and to stay is Angolo di Rosina in Novello (see our review on Tripadvisor.com).

The proprietor is Massimo Martino.  Last year, when we were in La Morra for the Barolo tasting (this year it is on 1 September), his wife Tiziana took us from their bed and breakfast, Tra Monti e Vigne, to La Morra. After the tasting, he picked us up and took us to Rosina where we had dinner and then back to the B&B.  A very handy service they provide so that you do not have to drive when you are impaired as we were.

We had the opportunity to see his first efforts as a winemaker with the 2010 Langhe Nebbiolo.  Today, 11 August 2013, we made a risotto with Barolo and opened the 2010 Nebbiolo to have with it.

Hopefully, he has more of the 2010.  If not, we have a bottle of the 2011 in the cantina.  We will try to get more of the 2010 and/or the 2011 when we are there on the first of September.

Highly recommended!!!

8 September 2013  The 2010 is finished.  However, we had a bottle of the 2011 with dinner on Sunday evening at Rosina.  It is very good.  We bought another six bottles to keep in the cellar.  We are giving it about six months to settle down after the trip home.

22 May 2015  We opened a bottle of the 2011 Langhe Nebbiolo for lunch today and served my Sicilian Grandmother's meatballs (made with ground turkey) with it.  It went very well with the meal.  Ready to drink but will hold for a few more months.

23 August 2015 We opened our last bottle of the 2011 Langhe Nebbiolo for lunch today which was a Chinese style vegetable stir fry with pieces of turkey breast.  The wine held up very well for the entire meal and was a great compliment to it.  Highly recommended.  We feel it is ready to drink now.

02 October 2016  We opened one of our bottles of Massimo's 2013 Langhe Nebbiolo for lunch today.  Massimo had told us back in June when we visited their B&B in La Morra that the wine was ready to drink.  It is very, very good.  We served it with a plate of pizzochieri.  Great wine, ready to drink, try it now!!  Should last for another year but do not be disappointed if it does not.

03 December 2016  As you can probably glean by the entries above, we are big fans of Massimo and his various endeavors.   We sleep in two, eat in another and drink from the third.  This review, however, is about the drink!  Our neighbors since we have lived here are moving closer to his place of work.  They came over this evening to discuss some of the details and outline what we will need to do to watch their residence while they are living in the other.  We opened a bottle of Massimo's 2013 Nebbiolo as a conversation wine.  We reiterate our feeling that the wine is ready to drink now!  It is a very good, light, Nebbiolo that will go with most meals as well as being a conversation wine.  Have it in your cellar?  Try a bottle now and tell us what you think of it!!!

9 March 2017  We opened the last bottle of the 2013 Langhe Nebbiolo for lunch today.  We had a very typical Sicilian meal comprised of a plate of pasta with the sauce that we make from our tomatoes using my grandmother's recipe with a small addition (fresh ground black pepper) and her polpette (meatballs) made from her recipe except that instead of ground beef, we use ground turkey.  The wine is still very good but we believe that it is in its final months.  It has become quite acidic and the fruit is lacking after a short time open.  We suggest that, if you have not done so and have the wine, try it now.   
 6 August 2017  Massimo had given us a bottle of his 2011Barolo to try.  We had read that the 2011 was ready to drink when it came out of resting which would have been in 2014.  We held it to rest after the drive home and opened it for lunch today.  The menu was a tomato soup that Natalya had made from the tomatoes that were left over from our canning efforts today (which she asked me to season with a light Indian spice combo and I ended up turning into a sauce rather than a soup), some chicken meatballs that we used the same spice in and some Indian basmati rice.  The wine was not ready to drink. It was still in pieces but you could tell, with at least 4-5 years of rest, would be quite good.  If you have it, put a 2020 open date on it if you have the patience.