2024 Brezza Langhe Nebbiolo DOC, Piedmont

Like walking into a room where someone has just spritzed rose water and crushed fresh sage and thyme together, light and lifted and completely pretty. Tart red fruits move through a delicate and dusty palate with an herbal finish that feels as ethereal and weightless as the nose that started it all.

91 points Wine Enthusiast

Made entirely with organically farmed Nebbiolo and vinified in cement, the racy 2024 Langhe Nebbiolo from Brezza has aromas of strawberry, violet, cake spice and star anise. Lithe tannins and bright acidity keep it polished and energized while a bitter orange note signals the close. 

92 points Kerin O'Keefe 

Brezza is one of Barolo’s great old family estates, with roots in the area stretching back to the late 19th century and bottling under its own name since 1910. Based just outside the village of Barolo, the family works organically and follows a resolutely traditional approach in the cellar. Their Langhe Nebbiolo is a cracking introduction to the Brezza style — fragrant, savoury and unmistakably Nebbiolo, without requiring a decade of patience before pulling the cork.

The 2024 vintage was cooler and more demanding than recent warm years, giving Nebbiolo plenty of aromatic lift and freshness. The Langhe’s calcareous clay and marl soils suit the variety beautifully, encouraging its distinctive combination of perfume, acidity and fine tannin. Brezza keeps the winemaking straightforward, allowing those rose-and-cherry characters to remain front and centre.

Translucent garnet with ruby highlights, the nose opens with sour cherry, wild strawberry and redcurrant before rose petal, violet and blood orange appear. With air come liquorice root, dried thyme, black tea and a little warm earth. The palate is lively and beautifully dry, with crunchy red fruit carried by bright acidity and fine, gently dusty tannins. Cherry skin, orange peel and savoury herbs run through the middle before a mouthwatering finish of rose, anise and spice.

Try this with pork and fennel meatballs in tomato sugo, duck and shiitake dumplings, mushroom arancini, lamb kofta with sumac or a mortadella and taleggio pizza. Our pick is the pizza, salty mortadella, molten cheese and blistered crust against young Nebbiolo’s cherry, rose and tannin sounds like a dangerously efficient bottle-emptying device.

Cellaring: Drink now to 2033.