Oddero's wines display a combination of tradition with a dash of polish, with moderately long extraction times of around 25 days. Aging is in 2000L French oak barrels for around 2.5 years in the single vineyard wines.
This small, famous strip of vines lies on the ridge of Castiglione Falletto, with the sandy soils of a Diano sandstone outcropping. Along with a relatively cool southeast exposure, these are elegant Barolos, midweight and aromatic, which can show an enthralling tension between their intense-but-lean fruit and their fine-boned structure of lifting acidity and fine, softly embracing tannins. It's best to let these components loosen up a bit with bottle age. Drinking windows start 6-8 years from vintage.
WINE ADVOCATE 97+ POINTS - "The Oddero 2021 Barolo Rocche di Castiglione shows that etched minerality and soaring verticality that you can expect of this celebrated MGA site. This (and the 2021 Barolo Brunate) are my favorites in this group of single-vineyard releases. I love the sharpness, the focus, the tension and those taut tannins that stitch it together. This wine reveals a note of candied cherry, raspberry and terrific fruit purity. It ages in botte grande for 24 months, and 3,000 bottles were created."
VINOUS 97 POINTS - "The 2021 Barolo Rocche di Castiglione is a classic wine from this site. Vibrant, focused and finely cut, the 2021 dazzles with finesse. Crushed rocks, mint, slate, white pepper, mint and orange peel all race across the palate. The 2021 Rocche is everything Barolo is—everything it can be. I especially admire its intensely saline energy. This is shaping up to be one of the wines of the vintage." Drink 2028 - 2046. - Antonio Galloni
"Rocche di Castiglione is a beautiful narrow vineyard on top of the “Rocche”, whose meaning is “cliffs”. The original rock is extremely close to the surface, the sedimentary soil is not deep, instead, it is thin and loose. During the warmest seasons, the plants really suffer for water shortage." - WINERY NOTES
The origins for Cantine e Poderi Oddero go back at least to the 1800s when family members were documented as making wine in the town of La Morra. By 1878, they had their estate bottling, and the by the end of that century, small barrels were being sold to the Americas. The modern winery was shaped by Giacomo Oddero who renovated things in the 1950s, who served officially in guiding Piedmont's agricultural products through the formation of regulations. This is a family who is deeply rooted in the area's agriculture!
Today, Giacomo's daughter, Mariacristina is clearly continuing to make benchmark wines of the Langhe region! The estate's vineyards are spread out, from the Barolo/La Morra slope's Brunate vineyard to Serralunga's "Grand Cru" of Vigna Rionda.