This is relatively light in colour, a characteristic of the vintage, and is an elegant expression of the variety if ever there was one. Cranberry, pomegranate, red cherry, rose petal and orange rind characters meet sweet spice, tonic water and earth. Its tannin is lacy, its finish insistent, its polish finely-tuned. It’s a wine that you really have to sit with and contemplate. The length of the finish is what pushed me into the gold medal zone. Points: 94/100
This is pale in the glass, fragrant, expressly savoury and built on an energetic tension of fine tannin and vigorous acidity. This has a little more flesh and fruitfulness than the Ovitelli, but it’s neither particularly fleshy nor fruitful. And there’s much charm in that. Red cherry and sour black cherry, dried rose petals, Baharat spicing, pomegranate, clove, mace, dried orange peel and warm concrete, struck rock – it’s one of those wines that I just can’t stop smelling, so beguiling is the perfume. The structure is just as compelling, with insistent sandy, chalky tannins and a seam of electric acidity pulling the flavours long. Utterly individual and absolutely world class. Points: 97/100
