Barbaresco Riserva Asili, Produttori del Barbaresco 2013

Here is a wine with a long and promising future ahead. The 2013 Barbaresco Riserva Asili is a Nebbiolo that boasts the tannic tightness, acidity and compact fruit flavors you look for when assessing a wine's potential for cellar longevity. This vintage delivers encouraging results on all fronts. The mouthfeel is firm, compact and ready to loosen with time. The bouquet is both generous and dramatic with dark fruit followed by spice, smoke and an attractive mineral footprint. The finish is dry and almost salty, thanks to those lingering tones of brimstone and pencil shaving. The 2013 growing season saw a late harvest, and this helped to achieve full tannic and flavor ripeness. Hold off from drinking this wine for at least 5 years but preferably more.

Fragrant and elegant, this opens with a textbook Nebbiolo bouquet showing scents of tilled soil, rose, wild red berry, Alpine herb and a whiff of new leather. The taut, vibrant palate evokes sour cherry, juicy strawberry, licorice and clove framed in refined tannins and bright acidity. It's balanced and gorgeous but still young, so give it several more years to evolve into the beauty it's destined to become. Drink 2020–2033.