The 2015 Barbaresco Riserva Camp Gros is a powerful, burly wine. There is a good bit of depth to the red-toned fruit, but the tannins are pretty overpowering. I am not used to seeing this level of aggressiveness in the Camp Gros. Hopefully time will help the 2015 find a bit better balance. For now, the 2015 is a wine to bury in a deep corner of the cellar.

The 2020 Langhe Nebbiolo Martinenga is bright and effusive right out of the gate. Freshly cut flowers, mint, crushed red berries, chalk and white pepper give the Langhe Nebbiolo a super-appealing upper register. Because of the pandemic, the Nebbiolo was bottled later than usual, which may explain a feeling of nervousness I don't recall seeing in the past.

The long, even growing season in 2016 yielded a beautifully floral and vibrant Barbaresco from Gaiun, the plots that border Asili on the western end of the Martinenga cru. This wine’s exuberant red cherry flavors rush across the palate, propelled by mouthwatering acidity as those flavors gain notes of orange peel, warm spice and a hint of vanilla. The wine’s elegant structure and impeccable balance indicate plenty of aging potential.

The freshness and firmness of this young 2017 Barbaresco is impressive. The wine is tight and reserved, but suggests greatness, offering cherries, dark cherries, dried flowers and crushed stones. Intense tannins. This is a wine for the cellar. Give it five or six years of bottle age. Try after 2027.

From the warm, dry 2017 vintage, this wine is impressively nuanced, with delicate floral scents, pliant tannins and plush red fruit. A selection off 35- to 40-year-old vines, the wine aged for a year in barriques (30 percent new) and then in Slavonian oak casks. It’s appealing now, though the wine has the freshness to age well, too.

An explosion of flavors on the nose and palate; dark forest fruits, dry hay, strawberries with cream, smoke and spice. Great Complexity and Intensity.

The plum and cherry fruit is accented by vanilla and toast notes in this firm, linear red. A compact, burly style, with dense, dusty tannins guarding the finish. Best from 2023 through 2037. 500 cases made, 75 cases imported.  

This is one of the most structured Barbarescos from here, showing lots of dark fruit and black olives, together with bark and black truffles. Full-bodied and layered with fantastic structure and a long finish. Needs four or five years to come around.