On the nose, aromas of daffodils, lime and freshly sliced green apple swirl together to create a sweet, floral crispness, floral crispness, which persists on the palate even in the face of a potent salinity and searing acid.

The 2016 Barolo Riserva Villero is an elegant, polished Barolo. It offers up a beguiling mix of orange peel, cinnamon, dried flowers, cedar, leather and sweet pipe tobacco, all framed by a discreet touch of oak. Time in bottle has softened the tannins a touch. This is beautifully done.

I spent a good amount of time huddled over this fantastic bottle over the course of a few days. This is another masterpiece in a long line of masterpieces from the Villero site in Castiglione Falletto that is definitely a personal MGA favorite. The Vietti 2016 Barolo Riserva Villero can be summed up in a single word: seamless. You immediately recognize the strong personalized style of the wine despite the Vietti ownership changes, although in truth this vintage was still under the guide of Luca and Elena Penna-Currado because the estate was sold in July 2016 and they stayed on to make wines for a few more years to follow. The smoothness of the wine represents a continuum across various chapters of dark fruit, roasted chestnut, iron ore, blood orange, aniseed and white truffle. It does not have the weightlessness of some of today's top Barolo; in fact, quite the opposite: this is a wine of depth, full-bodied texture and smooth transitions. Production is exactly 5,146 bottles, 330 magnums and 15 double magnums.

This is very intense with electric acidity. Dried apples, lemons and minerals with a salty undertone. Full-bodied with phenolic tension and an extremely long finish. Hints of oyster. Needs two or three years to show its greatness, but fantastic already.

Dense blackberries and blueberries emerge shrouded in fresh coffee notes, cardamom, star anise, and Ceylon cinnamon. Like a panther stalking through moonlight, the wine combines raw power with sublime grace. The palate weaves cassis and black plum with formidable tannins, creating a study in elegance that promises decades of evolution. Drink from 2027.

The 2016 Barolo Riserva Villero is a dense, packed wine. Black cherry, plum, licorice, leather and incense add to an impression of brooding, virile intensity. Readers will have to be patient, as the 2016 clearly needs time. Even so, my belief remains what it has always been—that Villero is not the best vineyard in the Vietti range. That is even more apparent today, given the new sites that have been added to the range. The logic of making the estate's Riserva, theoretically the estate's top wine, from this site has always escaped me. That is more true today than ever, given the elite sites Vietti has added to their range in recent years.

The 2023 Trebbiano Capezzana is youthfully coy, mixing hints of ginger with wildflowers and lime. It's round and supple with a whiplash of zesty acidity and a saline flourish offsetting nearly oily textures and depths of ripe nectarine. It finishes tense and incredibly long, tapering off with a cheek-puckering lemony concentration. The 2023 is painfully young today but full of potential.