2014 Cigliuti Barbaresco Serraboella, Piedmont

100% Nebbiolo from the Serraboella cru in Neive. The site sits on calcareous soils at 350m above sea level, with a southwestern exposure. The vines are aged between 25 and 55 years old and yields are about 4 to 4.5 tonnes per hectare. Fermentation and maceration takes place in steel vats at controlled temperatures. The wine is matured for 26 months in Slavonian oak casks and mid-sized French oak casks.

The 2014 Barbaresco Serraboella has quite a bit more volume and greater breadth than the Vie Erte, as it so often does, along with quite a bit of tannic heft. Here, too, readers will have to be patient, as the 2014 is austere, unyielding and massively tannic. Dark cherry, plum, tobacco, smoke, licorice and dried herbs are some of the many notes that inform this decidedly virile, potent Barbaresco. Readers who can wait will be rewarded with a super-expressive wine.