Fine bubbles. Medium Bodied. Pink Friut. Fermentation notes—toast, butter, tootsie roll. Mouth filling smoothly textured. Spicy. Smokey. — 2 years ago
Pulled from my cellar, popped and poured and presented double-blind to the group. In the glass, the wine appears a deep garnet with a translucent core, a slightly orange rim and some signs of fine sediment on the glass. On the nose, the wine is mature with initial notes of Tootsie Roll and old leather bound books. However after about 40min in the glass, the nose brightens up and begins to show more varietal characteristics: cherries, desiccated flowers, fennel, damp earth, leather and espresso. On the palate, the wine is bone dry and the tannin’s are still quite firm. Acid is medium+ and the finish is long. Alcohol is medium. A very lovely mature wine! Guesses were all in Italy but further north in Piemonte (Barbaresco mostly) and much, much younger with most settling on late 90’s. I don’t drink a lot of modern wines from Antinori but this was quite the charmer with 41 years of age on it. If anyone has any well stored examples, drink now with about 40min of air. That being said, there is enough life for these to soldier on for another 5-10 but this is very clearly in the twilight of its life. Something else of note: the cork was extracted completely intact. It was one of those cute little stubby ones more typical of the time. — 3 years ago
This is so good and so young with ridiculous acidity. It’s too cold so the nose is very quiet. But wow what a palate. Insane acidity and huge dry fruit extract. Unreal density and concentration but so nimble. Apricot and citrus fruits galore and a minutes long finish. 9.6 with no aromas and barely any air. Let’s see where this goes. Nose now is all citrus jelly baby and lime flesh with other exotic citrus. Crazy complex. Palate is so juicy and so elegant. Amazing density. 9.6 to 9.7. So sapid with so much energy. Wow! — 9 months ago
Intense aromas of dark cherry, chocolate and blueberry. Abundant on mulberry flavors, mocha and fresh cut beets, a bit hint of medley jelly, mouthfeel is on the fresh side of dark fruits with solid taste of cacao coating on the back end of the palate. Not overly lingering finish. — 7 months ago
Liquid jelly aromas of grapefruit and nectarine. Spice and gorgeous aromas. Floral. So complex. Just an insane nose. 9.5. or 9.6 nose. Very harmonious and lovely sweet pink grapefruit. Great acids. So complete. Long. Amazing. So harmonious and soothing. Amazing fruit. The extra skin contact gives this another dimension of complexity. — 3 years ago
Surprisingly delicious at 10 years of age. Wonderful ripe Napa jelly fruit. Surprisingly good acid, the tannins have receded but still provide some structure. Rarely drink Napa merlot but this is compelling. Certainly somewhat biased by the fact that I worked on this vineyard in 2011. Nice pairing with skirt steak on the grill. — 3 years ago
Douglas Braun
2019-Vintage a slight tawny edge , dried strawberry fruit roll up, earth, acetate, floral , very soft, my guess is that this won’t be getting better, but for the time being very complexing — a month ago