{cork, 5%} Clear yellow-green colour, with the classic nose of apples, flowers and grapes. Nearly medium-sweet, but the light medium frizzante bubbles keep it fresh, and spotlight the acidity. Light-medium body, immensely drinkable, with a reasonably persistent finish. Lovely wine, and only the long line-up of reds on the table stopped us ordering another one…

{cork, 12.5%, $30} Light ruby in colour, clean and vivid. Youthful nose of bitter cherries and dry Sangiovese characters. A dry palate follows, quite light, with little or no oak, cherry/almond fruits, quite light tannin and acid, but evenly balanced along the palate. Everything to scale, and food-friendly.

{cork, 12%} Clear garnet, the dusty nose is low in primary fruit, although youthful. How can something smell this dry and dusty? The palate offers nebulous dark fruits in a subtle way, savoury and bone dry. Dusty tannins build to a medium level, acid is unobtrusive. Weight of the wine is towards the front of the palate, with a shortish finish.

{cork, 14%, A$41} Mid ruby in colour, there’s nothing ‘little & sweet’ (dolcetto) about this wine. The nose is intense, with big aromas of rich ripe raisiny fruit. Big-boned on the palate, with a medium-high level of dusty and powerful tannins. Large scale, it sits towards to front of the palate and finishes with medium length. Perhaps needs a little more time to acquire secondary characteristics, although it’s hard to see the fruit keeping up with the tannins.

{cork, 14%, A$40} Powerful aromas of earth and scorched oak. A big brooding wine in a clean modern, almost new-world style, with plenty of ripe black fruit on the palate, along with a fair whack of acid, powerful gritty tannins, a slather of oak and full-bodied weight. The balance just tails off a little on the back palate, perhaps. A big brutal wine, showing only a little development at this age, needs to settle down a bit to provide more enjoyment.

{cork, 13.5%, A$40} Sticking with Central Italy, this example is a more refined example of the montepulciano grape. It’s also very clean and modern, although does offer a little earthy sweatiness to offset to soft red fruits underneath. A medium weight balance of acid & tannin makes a decent structure, the palate is pretty even from front to back. Ripe fruit, although the drying finish is certainly tannin dominated and makes me question any aging much beyond another 3-5 years.

{cork, 15%, $70} Garnet in colour, the nose presents developing aromas of rich raisins and fruit cake. The palate offers what seems like superheated spicy fruits, with plenty of acidity; the weight of the wine, along with plenty of alcoholic warmth, falls on the front of the palate. I found the finish faded a little quicker than ideal, although it’s still an impressive wine.

{cork, 15.5%, A$130} Deep ruby. A developing nose of raisin fruits, with a scorched earth note. A dry palate, loaded with chalky tannins, of full body and a really tight, integrated feel. The richly fruity palate offers a little developed earthiness as well, but the wine still feels taut and closed. It is a clear step above the preceding wine; it’s both reassuring and somehow disheartening that the best wine of the night is also the most expensive. This feels like it needs many more years to open out. Super wine.

{cork, 13%, A$70} Clear garnet with a slightly fading rim. Very much out of line with the rest of the night’s wines – this could almost be a modest Bordeaux in comparison. The nose is all secondary characteristics, dominated (not unpleasantly) by soft cedary oak. The palate is low in acid, still quite high in powdery tannin despite the years, and evenly balanced along the palate, if only medium body in weight. A bit monochromatic though, it’s endearing enough but there’s not much complexity here.

{cork, 13.5%} A lovely rusty-coloured Nebbiolo, but that’s where it ends. The nose is like a musty old sofa, and a massively tannic palate follows. This is dry to the point of desiccation – not oxidized or evidently faulty, just brutally skeletal. I don’t know how much fruit was ever here, but any primary notes have long since departed, unfortunately without leaving anything much behind. Disappointing.