9/7/2023 - Jeff Leve wrote:

Flowers, bitter cocoa, dried cherries, plums, black cherries, espresso, truffle, and fennel with a touch of spice create the perfume. The palate is full-bodied, round, lush, and plummy with layers of chocolate-dusted plums, blue fruit, licorice, and a bit of chalk in the endnote. Drink from 2023-2040.

6/14/2018 - aquacongas Likes this wine:

Dark golden colour, too much for his Age but in the palate much fresher but really sweet, GD is equivalent to GG (Grand Cru), so in this case is off balanced, maybe a bad stored bottle not decanted, ripe yellow sone fruits in the finish

1/15/2021 - Tim Heaton Likes this wine:

Far too young, for my tastes, anyway. That said, and as most would expect from Vallana, this is seriously well made. A compact medium body at the moment, though I'm confident it will fill out some as it ages. Woodsy, herbal, and more soil than fruit driven just now. A 2oz glass I left uncovered overnight showed a tinge of oxidation, but it also allowed some of the underlying red fruit to emerge - even if just a little. This will be much more enjoyable in 4+ years, which is how long I'll be holding my remaining four bottles before taking another peek. I'll have to ask Francis Fogarty next time I see him, why he chose to go with a DIAM5 closure (vs, at least DIAM10) as, to my palate, this has another decade ahead of it, at least. HOLD. 13,0% abv., 2025-2035. Based on my feeling of its apogee, it's highly recommended+

http://www.italianwine.blog

5/11/2022 - cephomer Likes this wine:

P Walnuts supplied for our Xmen blind tasting last nite. Sweet fruit on the nose and palate at first but, in the glass, the wine opened and changed quite a bit. More leather, black fruit and some cloves on the nose. Medium body, medium acidity with fairly gritty tannins coming to the fore, sour black cherry and some earth on the palate. Good concentration. The wine tasted hotter than its actual alcohol content. I liked this wine, and several of us ID'd as coming from Spain.

7/7/2020 - pigdaddy wrote:

lots of nebbiolo for the $, with a midterm window of reward; youthfully dry after time in the decanter.

zucchini 'noodles', mild pork sausage, marinated sungold tomatoes & red onion, pecorino

1/05/21: decanted 30 min, quaffed over two hours. remains a tasty young nebb/vespolina, chewy sour cherry, grippy now, but a couple of years will make me grin

steak salad, escarole & roasted little spuds, buttermilk blue cheese, walnuts

2/17/2021 - cephomer wrote:

Popped n poured blind last nite with the X-Group. On opening, bright fruit and candy, along with very pungent floral aromas. Very light bodied (Wife called it watery...). Interestingly, both of us pretty quickly ID'd it as a Beaujolais due to a very old familiarity with the gamay grape (gaydar?). As our tasting progressed, the wine improved in the glass, gaining complexity and exuding some notes of leather and pepper, also demonstrating more of a rustic quality and a longer, tho bitter finish. 2 of us identified this as a cru Beaujolais so kudos to Walnuts and me. I'm not a fan of the gamay grape, but I gave this wine a higher than normal score due to it being a higher level example of what-I-consider to be an inferior grape--about as good as gamay can get IMO....(and also as I recognize how thin skinned Stevie W (supplier of this bottle) can be at times. My guess is he picked this wine for our tasting bc he was just overly mesmerized by the chemical reactions involved in fermentation of the gamay grape).

2/28/2021 - cephomer Likes this wine:

Double decanted very quickly last nite and then poured myself a glass. I didn't even recall owning this wine but was searching thru the cellar last week and came upon an unopened 6-pack, so here we are...lucky me! There's no noticeable age apparent in the glass. Very generous nose of black fruits, tobacco, some truffle notes and perhaps some foresty pine notes. Interesting. This is a fairly full-bodied wine with ever-present concentrated ripe black fruit. I believe it's some 90% merlot and this fruit comes across as soft, yet quite dense and concentrated, though I wouldn't call it over-extracted. There's also leather, tobacco, earth, chocolate, spice and gamey elements present. This is a very sexy, complex and elegant wine, with silky smooth tannins and a soft, creamy, somewhat round mouthfeel. The finish is equally elegant and a solid 2 minutes long. Delicious wine that is showing extremely well, with a youthful exuberance and freshness. I'm so pleased to have 5 more bottles: I'll follow this wine closely over the next 10-15 yrs!

11/23/2019 - pdicorpo Likes this wine:

At first, I didn’t enjoy it at all. It needed about 2 hours to open up. Once it opened, it was the Campi Raudii that I remembered. Smoothly, velvety with some dark fruit notes.

10/3/2016 - cephomer wrote:

Drank at Goldstein dinner for new year. Dark fruit on the nose, as well as some herbs and earth. Mostly cooked red fruit, gamey and herbal, with some leather and earthy elements. Somewhat past its prime and seen better days.

8/7/2020 - cephomer Likes this wine:

Drank blind last nite with the Xtremo group. Most of us pinned it as riesling, tho I thought it Alsatian. (Stevie W guessed it as German, but he prob cheated...) Some fruity aromas at first, which faded over time. Minerals, lime, limestone, quite dry particularly on the finish. Fairly high acidity, but decent amt of stone fruit to offset it. A pleasant enough riesling, if nothing particularly unique about it.

11/25/2020 - cephomer Likes this wine:

Drank blind with the Xtremo boyz over past 2 nites. Interesting wine. I popped it directly out of the cellar 2 nites ago, and was struck by the generous nose of black fruit (the cork reeked of it), and its jammy, juicy, woody, somewhat hot and peppery profile. My first thought was it could be a shiraz or some Cali laboratory experiment. I had my 2nd glass a few hrs later and the wine had calmed down, showing less jamminess, more nuances-some cedar notes, some earth. I corked it and finished it off last nite with the group. The wine had changed again, this time to a very earthy, mushroomy concoction, showing lots of lead pencil shavings, with barnyard aromas of earth and forest note. There's still some tannin here, not particularly high alcohol and good concentration of fruit with noticeable complexity. This is clearly a well-made wine and, in the opinion of many at our tasting, the best we've tasted in our group in some time. Enjoyed it very much. Thanks Paulie W!

7/23/2020 - cephomer wrote:

Drank blind last nite with the Xtremo crowd. No one guessed it as right bank Bdx, tho some expressed their belief that is 'might' be a Bordeaux blend--SW was waaaay off! (I thought was northern Italian Piedmont, lol). Expressive nose of black cherries-my fave quality of the wine. Medium body, plenty of black fruit on the palate, good amount of mouth-puckering acidity. Not particularly long or complex. The 14.5% alcohol was not initially apparent but became more so as we drank the wine. Not a particularly memorable wine, and I'm unsure how reflective of the fine 2015 vintage it actually is as I haven't had many yet (tho we did taste a 2015 Pomerol last week which was far superior to this wine).

6/24/2020 - cephomer Likes this wine:

Popped & poured last nite. Didn't but should've decanted for a time. Dark red color, age not particularly apparent in the glass. Nose is a bit musty, but there's plenty of fruit there and perhaps some licorice notes. Blackberries, some earthy notes and some spice on the palate. Smooth and tending toward elegant with good length and a lovely, silky finish. Some tannins lingering, but mostly resolved. Wine showing very nicely. I'll finish the bottle tonite with the wino group and see where it after being open since last nite.

6/12/2020 - cephomer Likes this wine:

I drank this wine, finishing the bottle soon after tasting it and entering my prior note here, this time with food which made all the difference. With my chicken and lentils, the fruit in this wine was much more apparent, and also quite sweet and fairly sappy (yes, SW, sappy!). Acidity more apparent, and the wine was more friendly with some food accompanying it; however, the wine is still at best a middling Bdx and no more than a decent pour for a mid-week evening to serve with leftovers.

12/14/2015 - ffjxc wrote:

Drinking very nicely. The tannins have softened, the color was a very deep purple, slight green pepper and hint of cherry. Nice 24 year old Cabernet.

4/24/2018 - Eric Guido Likes this wine:

The nose was gorgeous with dark florals and undergrowth up front, followed by crushed black cherry, sweet herbs, black tea, and tobacco. On the palate, I found soft, enveloping textures with dark red fruits, hints of sweet herbs, savory minerals and enlivening acidity. It was perfectly ready right now with hints of fine tannin still tugging at the senses as notes of tart cherry, inner herbal tones and earth lingered throughout the medium-long finish.

11/15/2010 - bordeaux4wino wrote:

'05 was a splendid year all around France and this includes the right bank. This is a mostly Merlot & Cab Franc blend with only a little Cab Sauv to give it some backbone. It was scored a 99 by WS! This being a Grand Cru on top of that means you could sit on this for a bit.

2/17/2017 - cdp1276 Likes this wine:

Delicate notes of tobacco, green pepper and anise. Really interesting experience which blends the flavor profile of a traditional Pinot and Cabernet.

5/24/2017 - cephomer Likes this wine:

Drank last nite at WWS 'smackdown' blind tasting. Had this wine recently at another WWS tasting and it was surprisingly disrespected--though it was then my WOTN, so I thought I'd bring it back and see what the crowd thought this evening. My notes are pretty consistent, though I thought it showed slightly better the last time around. I think I may have decanted it for too long a time this time (2.5 hours).
Slight browning at edges. Classic bordeaux nose of lead pencil, black fruits and cedar. Not quite as tannic or youthful as I recalled. By no means a blockbuster, as this wine is subtle & restrained yet with a solidly firm structure. Plenty of black fruit here, lots of pencil shavings, along with notes of cedar, leather, cassis & cigar box. A wonderful, classically elegant left bank wine that is drinking very well right now. Incredibly, this wine once again did not fare well against its competition--a $15 bottle of dreck in my opinion but, as I stated before, there's no accounting for taste or wine knowledge even among allegedly sophisticated tasters...My number 2 WOTN of this nite. One hour decant should suffice.

7/19/2014 - Christoffer78 Likes this wine:

Perhaps the most surprising Barolo I have ever tasted. This 2010 Parusso is ultra young, still it is approachable, open for business and actually extremely inviting. The nose offers up abundant darkish red fruits, a herbal backbone and intriguing violets. Honestly, I have never experienced so much violets in a wine before. There is classy fresh violet, but also the type of candy store violet scent which reminds me of childhood. The palate is balanced and quite integrated. There are tannins but they are not overly vocal and together with the acidity they promise medium term cellaring. I see no reason to wait though, since a journey through the land of violets awaits the eager taster today already!

2/25/2017 - cephomer Likes this wine:

Drank at WWS wine dinner in Dobbs Ferry. Surprisingly vibrant and youthful. Light bodied, still good amount of fruit, most black. Soft tannins not fully resolved, good complexity. Very nice!