Barbaresco Rabaja, Bruno Rocca 2020

The 2020 Barbaresco Rabajà offers a beguiling combination of richness from the warm year with the elegance and translucence that mark the wines here today. Dark tonalities of Nebbiolo fruit open first, followed by scents of leather, spice and blood orange. This heady, beguiling Barbaresco has a ton of potential, as evidenced by how beautifully it opens with aeration. I can't wait to see how this develops. Here, too the benefits of bottling earlier are evident. The 2020 is a striking wine. (Drink between 2025-2040)

Opens up to intoxicating floral notes of pot pourri with dried cherry, savoury fruit and the freshness of redcurrant. Violet candy, liquorice and menthol in depth. The palate, despite a slightly warming finish, shows lifted, long acidity, very well integrated and allied to polished, elegant tannins. Restrained chocolate finish. Well known for its sternness, Bruno Rocca's Rabajà in 2020 is a great example of the rounder character of the vintage, without losing the ability to age of the greatest Barbaresco. The wine is fermented with its own yeasts and the malolactic fermentation occurred in big French oak vessels where the wine aged for 14-16 months. (Drink between 2023-2050)