This is a very fruit-forward syrah with crushed blackberry and raspberry and hints of cloves. Medium body with firm, fine tannins and a spicy, lightly meaty aftertaste. Drink or hold.

Airy and crisply refreshing, the 2016 Zero wafts up with a bouquet of sweet smoke and pretty pear and sour melon nuances. It's elegant and soothing on the palate, with a burst of minerality up front that slowly gives way to green apple contrasting with candied ginger. Residual acids cleanse the senses while forcing them to water as this finishes long and nearly salty in character. The Zero does an excellent job of impressing with its savory character while urging the taster back to the glass for more. Well done.

The 2018 Barolo Brunate is a deep, layered wine that is going to need at least a few years to come together. Today, the Brunate is quite primary and backward, but all the ingredients are there. Sage, menthol, licorice, dried flowers and spice build with a bit of coaxing.

Casanova di Neri’s ‘white label’ is crafted from the estate’s vineyards in Montalcino’s northeast. The 2017 edition also sees grapes from Cerretalto included, which is usually bottled separately. It emerges slowly, giving scents of violets, yellow broom and mint. The palate is currently a bit angular but the core reaches deep. It hints promisingly at cherry, clay, iron and graphite. An intriguing, intricate expression with noteworthy freshness. Give this a year to flesh out.

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 2017 Ghiaie della Furba opens to a bouquet of minty herbs, camphor and smoke before deepening further to display dusty red currant and spice box. This is velvety and fleshy in feel, with stimulating acidity that enlivens its spicy black fruit and building mineral tones. It tapers off with persistence, power and grippy tannin, the perfect mix for a long evolution. The Ghiaie della Furba is a blend of 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Syrah and 20% Merlot that refines in barrique, half new and half second pass. It's important to note that production was down by 40% in 2017 due to frost.

This is one of my all-time favorite Brunellos, and although personal tastes are fluid and may change from time to time, there is something timeless and solid about this wine. It's like a touchstone. The Casanova di Neri 2017 Brunello di Montalcino Tenuta Nuova is graced with a similar interlude of elegant rose or crushed flower that we saw in the annata wine. It appears more prominently here, and with more shape and focused intensity. Make no mistake, Giacomo Neri builds wines for pleasure and sensual impact, and this wine (helped by a hot growing season and 15% alcohol) ticks all those boxes. But it also shows floral elegance and sour cherry freshness that defies our expectations of the vintage.

Packaged with a brown label, the Tenuta Scerscé 2018 Valtellina Superiore Nebbiolo Essenza is enormously clear and intense with varietal tones of wild berry, tart cherry, blue flower and potting soil. This wine shows a pretty floral side with blue violet and fresh lilac that offer a pretty sense of vertical lift to the bouquet.