The aromas of licorice, violets and bramble berries impress. Full body, incredible length and texture. Lasts for minutes on the palate. Give it at least five years to soften.

A dark, powerful wine, the 2012 Barolo Brunate is the most brooding and inward of these wines. With time and a good bit of air, the Brunate becomes a bit more precise and nuanced, yet it remains a bit monolithic next to the other wines in the range. A host of savory herbs, licorice, tobacco and dark fruits meld into the huge, explosive finish. There is no shortage of depth or character, but increasingly the Brunate is being outclassed by some of its siblings. The competition is pretty tough at Vietti these days.

It's hard not to fall in love with the 2012 Barolo Brunate. This is an uneven vintage across the appellation, but Vietti has managed to harness the very best side of the grape during this growing season. The wine is densely concentrated and rich with black cherry, cassis and spice. It shows firm structure at the back with elegantly polished and fine-tuned tannins. The wine is almost approachable now (in another five years), but is more suitable for longer bottle aging.

The wonderful wines of Vietti have me thinking a lot about Langhe Nebbiolo lately. The 2013 Langhe Nebbiolo Perbacco is definitely among the top ten "easiest-to-drink" wines I've tasted this year. Following a long morning of tasting new vintage of Barolo, I invited a few guests out to lunch. I wanted to grab an open bottle from my morning session and this is the one I re-corked and stuffed into my purse. Some 20 minutes later I was sitting outside on a warm spring day at one of my favorite restaurants in the center of Alba. I ordered lightly grilled squid as an appetizer and a portion of carne cruda covered in thinly shaved scales of black truffle. I could have grabbed a Barolo, but the sunlit setting and the raw ingredients in the lunch menu were a perfect match for Langhe Nebbiolo. In fact, the Perbacco awarde(more...)