June 26, 2017 - Inky dark ruby with cassis nose. Dry savory fruit a bit of smoky tannins that are softening. Bold fruit and body with a lot of earthy, leather, balsam and forest notes. Tart cherries, olive brine with some nice acid to balance the fruit and tannnins. Lovely after 16 years, supposedly this Verbena wine was made to drink young, but has aged well. I need to start drinking some of my older Italians. Three nights later and this is going strong, chewy tannins, brambles and cherries witha good streak of tartness and complexity. A thick body balanced well by the tart fruit.
January 30, 2017 - Dark garnet ruby with bricking rim. I opened on night one, it needed some time, so I left the in glass covered which usually works well as a decant method. Not this time, and the wine degraded significantly to barely drinkable.
I decided to give it a second chance, and night two was where it should be. Night two, ripe bramble nose, medium acid, full, but restrained fruit, ripe cherries, earth, mushroom and leather, chewy tannins with a bit of bitter. Long finish. Lesson learned, old wines can be more delicate than young wines.
On night three, getting a lot of savory notes, olive brine, sour cherries and red plums, beef blood with a goodly amount of acid with a few stone fruit tannins to bracket the fruit. Really need a good grilled steak with this.
February 21, 2016 - Last bottle of 7, quite sad.
This was the most mature of the lot, and lacked the brett character of a few of the previous bottles.
A lovely mature brunello.
April 17, 2015 - Dark ruby with ripe plum nose. Dry tannins with tart mineral, barnyard and earth, bright berry, red currants, well resolved tannins with the acid prominent. Should last for many years. Resting in the refer for a week and has only gotten better with juniper berry adding to the complexity.
December 29, 2014 - Dark, dark ruby, ripe fruit mineral nose. Dry, restrained ripe fruit, well integrated acid on the front and stone fruit tannins on the finish. Well balanced, restrained fruit, some mineral barnyard and leather. Drinking very well on the PnP. Lovely Tuscan red.
June 17, 2014 - Best bottle yet - great aromas and flavors of red fruit and Italian spices, with no hint of Brett. Great purchase!
January 30, 2014 - Another unique experience. This one opened with some "old Italian" funk, not quite Brett but close. This took an hour to begin to blow off and after 2.5 hours it was pretty much gone.
The wine that remained still seemed a bit tight and tannic, yet sported gorgeous aromas and flavors of prune, blackberry, licorice/anise, earth, spice, and oak/vanilla. The finish had good length but was quite tight.
This wine paired well with a tomato/cabbage/onion/garlic side dish of the Italian sausage.
September 25, 2013 - PnP from wine fridge, and best of the 4 bottles we've had so far, with lovely aromatics. This improved markedly after 45 minutes airtime. 91-92.
September 21, 2013 - Decanted 3+ hours, consumed over 2+ hours. This was the best showing we've had from the three bottles we bought. Strong iron notes persisted throughout the evening, while notes of tart cherry, tar, and something like smoked meat came and went. Forward acids, maybe even a little more than I would have preferred (certainly so on the finish), but there's plenty of time left for this to integrate. Better with food than alone, as is to be expected. 90-91.
July 13, 2013 - Decanted ~2 1/2 hours, consumed over 1 hour. Similar to my note from 4/7/2013, with more of a dried red fruit character and acid levels seeming to be a touch higher. Less funk, likely due to the decant. This suffered a little from the food pairing (I remembered a darker character and opened it alongside a grilled tri-tip), but still a nice bottle, and I'm glad to have one more.