Gian Luca Colombo Barolo DOCG 2021

Striking and lustrous ruby red, this buoyant wine lifts from the glass with floral notes of sour cherry, tobacco, vanilla, earthy minerality and orange slices. These meld with high-toned red fruits adding a bright and vivacious quality to the wine. Highly approachable, it drinks well now, with vibrant fruits, savory herbs and fine tannins all in balance today.

A Barolo that practices the art of elegant minimalism -- like a chef who knows exactly when to put the tweezers down -- this biodynamic beauty dances out of the glass with rosebuds and tart berries doing their best ballet moves, while herbs and warm earth provide the stage. The palate strikes that rare balance between "drink me now" temptation and "wait til you see me later" promise, with tannins playing nice and acidity bringing enough voltage to keep the lights on past 2038.

A blend of Nebbiolo grapes coming from Roddi and La Morra, made in big traditional Austrian barrels and stored in cement or terra cotta tanks. 

In Piedmont, Gian Luca Colombo is the guy that everyone talks about. The architect of the neo-classical style of Barolo focusing on wines with real finesse: silky, elegant, perfumed, fine fruit, with gentler tannins, less wood and extraction. Colombo is the guy that everyone wants advice from. He won the Gambelli award for best young winemaker in Italy, and he works alongside a winemaker who is a consultant in Barbaresco, who makes the wine at esteemed Bruno Giacosa. They taste together and talk together. The point here is that anything exciting happening in Barolo and Barbaresco, Gian Luca is probably aware of, and likely to be involved with.