Nebbiolo

94 points The Wine Advocate:Conterno’s 2004 Barolo Colonnello reveals a core of ripe dark cherries and a beautifully layered, sweet personality with superb length and a refined, fresh finish. With air the wine’s perfumed, spiced qualities emerge to complete this terrific effort. The Colonnello vineyard lies on the Monforte border with Barolo, with which it shares several attributes. A higher percentage of sand in Colonnello gives the wine its signature aromatics and refined tannins. This is an especially successful vintage for this wine. Anticipated maturity: 2009-2019. Antonio Galloni

93 points The Wine Advocate:The 2008 Roero Audinaggio is flat-out delicious; in fact it is one of the finest wines I have tasted from Ca-Rossa. The bouquet alone is beautiful. Sweet roses, flowers of all types, cherries and licorice emerge from this silky, refined Nebbiolo. I find gorgeous mid-palate sweetness and depth in an elegant, refined style that could easily be mistaken for a Barbaresco from the famous Asili vineyard. This is a fabulous effort from Ca- Rossa, and hopefully a sign of even greater things to come. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2018. Antonio Galloni

94 points The Wine Advocate:The 2007 Barolo is simply breathtaking. A bouquet that recalls Pinot Noir melds into pure Nebbiolo fruit as this captivating, sensual Barolo reveals off its pedigree. This shows remarkable detail, nuance and sheer clarity, with gorgeous depth and a radiant, totally engaging personality. Most of the attention here is generally focused on the single-vineyard wines, but readers should not look past the straight Barolo, a wine that has built an extraordinary track record for developing beautifully in bottle. Anticipated maturity: 2014-2027. Antonio Galloni

95+ points The Wine Advocate:The recently-bottled 2005 Barolo Cascina Francia is, as expected, somewhat closed down at this stage from an aromatic perspective. That said, it is impossible to ignore the wine’s richness and depth, both of which are impressive. With time in the glass hints of sweet roses, cherries, spices and tar emerge, all framed by impeccably silky tannins. As always, readers should taste this wine as soon as possible, as it will almost certainly head for a slumber during which it will be impossible to evaluate with any accuracy. Today, this mid-weight, graceful Barolo Cascina Francia looks to be accessible relatively early, which means around age 10-12 give or take. It is another superb Barolo from Giacomo Conterno. Anticipated maturity: 2017-2030. Antonio Galloni

Violet and rose overtones, with black fruit characteristics and hints of coffee and liquorice. Black cherry, plum and dark fruit flavours, coffee, liquorice and earthy, leathery overtones. Giovanni Rosso wines are lush and display superb structure, elegance and dense mid-palate fruit; the influence of wood is minimal. The finish is all Serralunga, long and lifted. The Sorting Table Importer