A multifaceted red, featuring cherry, strawberry, floral, iron, tobacco and oak spice aromas and flavors. Just when you think this is ready to enjoy, the firm, dense structure engages, leaving a stiff, if long, finish. Best from 2025 through 2042.
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A multifaceted red, featuring cherry, strawberry, floral, iron, tobacco and oak spice aromas and flavors. Just when you think this is ready to enjoy, the firm, dense structure engages, leaving a stiff, if long, finish. Best from 2025 through 2042.
An intriguing nose of red berries, decadent red apples, dried tobacco, roses and rich earth. Medium- to full-bodied with perfectly integrated tannins that create a lightly velvety underlay for the bright fruit and spice flavors that push through the long, long finish. Few reds from the montepulciano grape are able to offer this degree of complexity, combined with light-footed elegance and balance. Exquisite. Benchmark. Drink or hold.
The 2018 Barbaresco Gaiun Martinenga is encompassing in its aromas, with enveloping notes of incense, raspberry, and spiced orange. It is medium-bodied but offers more richness of fruit through the palate, with ripe strawberry, fresh roses, and crushed stones, ripe tannins, and a lot of immediate appeal as well as great charm. Drink 2023-2040. |
With organic fruit from a vineyard planted in 1918, the Vietti 2021 Barbera d'Alba Scarrone Vigna Vecchia is super concentrated and dense. There's a lot of fruit weight to take in, yet the wine holds that volume with elegance and careful balance. The bouquet has opulent notes of baked blueberry, chocolate cream frosting, spice and black licorice. The wine's complexity rolls through a series of waves and swells. The tannins cover the entire palate, and the wine wears its 15.5% alcohol very nicely.
Vin Ruspo, from the Carmignano production zone near Prato in Tuscany, is one of Italy’s most complex styles of rosato. A blend of Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon, Canaiolo and Cabernet Franc; deep orange appearance; aromas of orange zest, pear, pectin and orange roses. Medium-full with a rich, complex finish that is dry and elegantly styled, this has appealing flavors of orange and strawberry. Enjoy over the next 2-3 years.
Here's an exciting new submission from Vietti. The 2018 Barolo Cerequio is lovely, sporting a broad and enriched bouquet that paints a panoramic vision of this MGA that straddles the villages of La Morra and Barolo. Despite that wide vision, this wine also excels at showing pinpoint details of wild cherry, crushed stone and black licorice. Cerequio is a wine of latitude and depth. Tight tannins help to stitch it together into a comprehensive whole. Only 4,925 bottles were made in this inaugural release. Congratulations.
Readers will note the addition of two new wines that have been thrilling since the first day I tasted them. The first is from a choice parcel in Cerequio Vietti acquired from Michele Chiarlo. The new Monvigliero is made in conjunction with Jeremy Seysses of Domaine Dujac and has some whole cluster influence. As much as I hope stems don't become a trend in Piedmont like French oak barrels did in the 1990s, there is little question whole clusters seem to work especially well in Monvigliero. These wines are simply brilliant. There.
The 2018 Barolo Monvigliero, another new wine in this range, is dazzling. That's not much of a surprise, as the 2018 has always been gorgeous from barrel. A touch of whole clusters adds aromatic nuance and lift to this super-classic, sculpted Barolo. The Monvigliero impresses with its purity, delineation and class. Superb.
The 2019 Barolo Lazzarito continues a trend seen in recent years in which the focus has been more about finesse than raw power. Intense red fruit, iron, dried herbs, chalk, dried rose petal and white pepper all run through this deep, virile Barolo. The power and intensity of Serralunga really come alive on the heady, explosive finish. Bright saline notes linger on the deep, resonant finish. A Barolo of raw, unbridled power, the Lazzarito demands patience.
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