Critics

Rating: 17.5/20

NHB. A little sullen on the nose. Chocolatey oak with a very faint note of coconut. Fragrant even in the mouth, but at the moment it’s all oak. Beautiful oak, but nevertheless, all oak.

Some dried cherries. Some cranberry raisins, some red-apple skin. Mushrooms dipped in truffle dipped in cherry liqueur.

The tannins are beautiful – not yet resolved but like a child with great bone structure, all set for a stunning future.

When this is ready, it will fit into its own skin with a silky fluidity that will stop hearts. Long.

Rating: 16/20

Sour cherry and cherry stone, dark cocoa powder and earthiness – like the smell and taste of a mushroom just picked off tree roots, still mossy, not cleaned, fresh, otherworldly.

But then there is the sharp, clean splice of Barbera fruit that brings us back from otherworldliness to a wine that will be delicious with a simple roasttomato chilli pasta.

ibrium.

Rating: 17.5/20

Bosky perfume but with a touch of jewelled and (still) oh-so bright cranberry fruit. The fruit has a lustrous glow, like looking at a ruby through firelight. All the wood has melted into the fruit.  Little smudges of truffle and mace. It tastes like a rain soaked red maple leaf pressed into the winter-cold terracotta tile of a very old roof.
The flavours diffuse through your mouth, like walking through soft mist in autumnal woods with your tongue out. A lesson in ageing these wines… ?

Rating: 15.5/20

Slightly oxidised notes on the nose and palate. Lots of wood. Dry and astringent.

Rating: 16.5/20

An orange wine made from Arneis in Piemonte. No vintage on the label, but I think this is a single-vintage wine. Slow fermentation on skins and pips without temperature control.

Long maceration. Aged in French barriques. Sabbia means sand – the colour of the wine and the vineyard soil.

Incredible glowing amber gold and smelling of ginger biscuits and dried peaches and marigold petals. Very, very, very spicy!

I make this absolutely gorgeous Yemeni spice blend called Hawaij and it tastes just like it. Bone dry, with the only fruit being shavings of dried Seville orange peel and a stencil of apricots.

Crisp-fried sage. Dusty. It smells and tastes like the dust of a tobacco auction floot. Tannins, subtle, supple, fine, as if a nanometre thickness of molten rubber had been painted on and peeled off.

Long, intruiging, challenging wine.

Rating: 90/100 – Silver Medal

Precise and pretty red cherry and spice nose. This is supple, reasonably fresh and quite concentrated with a firm tannic structure and fairly long finish.

Rating: 89/100 – Bronz Medal

Wein.plus rating: excellent (90WP)

Editor note:

Nutty, slightly foliar and slightly spicy fragrance of ripe red and a little black berries with tobacco, earthy and tarry notes. Ripe, quite juicy fruit, again with tobacco and spicy aromas, a hint of smoke on the palate, present, ripe and relatively mellow tannin, good substance and persistence, has power and warmth, certain depth, nutty tones, very good, quite firm, juicy and spicy finish.

James Suckling, considered one of the major international wine critics, rated our Barolo DOCG Riserva 2012 with a score of 91/100.

James Suckling, considered one of the major international wine critics, rated our Barolo DOCG 2015 with a score of 91/100.

James Suckling, considered one of the major international wine critics, rated our Sabbia Vino Bianco with a score of 92/100.

James Suckling, considered one of the major international wine critics, rated our Barbaresco DOCG 2016 with a score of 92/100.