Weine, Parker:

92+/100 Punkte Robert Parker, Oct 31, 2018
Brancaia usually adds a little Merlot (20%) to this wine to soften and flesh out the crisp tightness that comes from Sangiovese. The 2015 Chianti Classico Riserva is a beautiful wine that plays its best cards in terms of mouthfeel. The bouquet is beautiful as well, with dark fruit nuances that are layered tight. You get wild cherries and red rose petal in generous supply. The mouthfeel is light to medium in texture, but it shows more smoothness and silkiness compared to many of its peers.

95/100 Punkte James Suckling September 2018
A spicy Chianti Classico Riserva showing dried red plums, dried roses, mahogany, forest floor, cedar, white truffles, wet earth and leather. But it#s all so fresh and delightful. The palate#s so focused and refined as the firm, wonderfully savory tannins dance between layers of dried fruit, which remains so pure due to the wealth of punchy acidity. Hints of orange rind on the long finish. Like a baby Brunello. Drink in 2024.

92+/100 Punkte Robert Parker, Oct 31, 2018
Brancaia usually adds a little Merlot (20%) to this wine to soften and flesh out the crisp tightness that comes from Sangiovese. The 2015 Chianti Classico Riserva is a beautiful wine that plays its best cards in terms of mouthfeel. The bouquet is beautiful as well, with dark fruit nuances that are layered tight. You get wild cherries and red rose petal in generous supply. The mouthfeel is light to medium in texture, but it shows more smoothness and silkiness compared to many of its peers.

95/100 Punkte James Suckling September 2018
A spicy Chianti Classico Riserva showing dried red plums, dried roses, mahogany, forest floor, cedar, white truffles, wet earth and leather. But it#s all so fresh and delightful. The palate#s so focused and refined as the firm, wonderfully savory tannins dance between layers of dried fruit, which remains so pure due to the wealth of punchy acidity. Hints of orange rind on the long finish. Like a baby Brunello. Drink in 2024.

92+/100 Punkte Robert Parker, Oct 31, 2018
Brancaia usually adds a little Merlot (20%) to this wine to soften and flesh out the crisp tightness that comes from Sangiovese. The 2015 Chianti Classico Riserva is a beautiful wine that plays its best cards in terms of mouthfeel. The bouquet is beautiful as well, with dark fruit nuances that are layered tight. You get wild cherries and red rose petal in generous supply. The mouthfeel is light to medium in texture, but it shows more smoothness and silkiness compared to many of its peers.

95/100 Punkte James Suckling September 2018
A spicy Chianti Classico Riserva showing dried red plums, dried roses, mahogany, forest floor, cedar, white truffles, wet earth and leather. But it#s all so fresh and delightful. The palate#s so focused and refined as the firm, wonderfully savory tannins dance between layers of dried fruit, which remains so pure due to the wealth of punchy acidity. Hints of orange rind on the long finish. Like a baby Brunello. Drink in 2024.

92+/100 Punkte Robert Parker, Oct 31, 2018
Brancaia usually adds a little Merlot (20%) to this wine to soften and flesh out the crisp tightness that comes from Sangiovese. The 2015 Chianti Classico Riserva is a beautiful wine that plays its best cards in terms of mouthfeel. The bouquet is beautiful as well, with dark fruit nuances that are layered tight. You get wild cherries and red rose petal in generous supply. The mouthfeel is light to medium in texture, but it shows more smoothness and silkiness compared to many of its peers.

95/100 Punkte James Suckling September 2018
A spicy Chianti Classico Riserva showing dried red plums, dried roses, mahogany, forest floor, cedar, white truffles, wet earth and leather. But it#s all so fresh and delightful. The palate#s so focused and refined as the firm, wonderfully savory tannins dance between layers of dried fruit, which remains so pure due to the wealth of punchy acidity. Hints of orange rind on the long finish. Like a baby Brunello. Drink in 2024.

92/100 Punkte Falstaff, September 2016
Glänzendes Rubingranat. Verspielt, zeigt zunächst Noten nach Siegellack und Unterholz, dann viel Brombeere, spannend. Fest und zupackend im Ansatz, öffnet sich mit kernigem Tannin, herzhaft, im Finale satter Druck, funkelt.

92/100 Punkte Robert Parker, Sep 2015
I tasted the 2010 Etna Rosso Cirneco (100% Nerello Mascalese) last year and had the chance to revisit the wine again. Since then, not much has changed although my impression is that it has started to flesh out nicely. It shows more spice coloring of cinnamon and clove this year. This is an austere and stubborn wine that plays its cards close to its chest. It reveals crushed stone, dark fruit and grilled herb with slow precision. These qualities bode well for its future evolution. So does the tannic management. The wine is stern, firm and structured. Fruit comes from 60-year-old pre-phylloxera vines that have been pruned down to just two clusters per vine.

2 Gläser Gambero Rosso 2017

93/100 Punkte Robert Parker August 2017
This is Terrazze dell'Etna's top-shelf wine. A pure expression of Nerello Mascalese, the 2011 Etna Rosso Cirneco represents a selection of the estate's oldest vines. This has made for an elegant and softly contoured wine with delicate aromatic layering and evident complexity. You get wild berry, pressed flowers, crushed mineral, licorice and garden herb. The finish shows dry tannins and the kind of lingering sophistication you only get with pre-phylloxera vines. Each plant is rigorously pruned to allow for only two clusters per vine.

97/100 Punkte Falstaff, Oktober 2018
Komplexes Bukett mit Noten von dunklen Beeren, Pflaume, dazu etwas Grafit und ein Hauch Trüffel. Am Gaumen dicht gewobene Struktur, viel Kraft und Saft, mineralische und balsamische Noten. Ein edler, komplexer Tropfen aus über 80-jährigen Reben.

93/100 Punkte Robert Parker Apr 2015
The oak is a little more obvious in the 2012 Pujanza Cisma than in the Norte. This is also 100% Tempranillo from a single vineyard, a 0.8 hectare plot they call Finca Valcabada which was planted in 1925 and is located at 600 meters altitude. The wine fermented in French oak vats with indigenous yeasts and matured in French oak barriques for 22 months. The nose seems less nuanced than the Norte, with the oak taking the lead role and perhaps it will develop in bottle but today it does not have those flowery tones of the Norte. The palate is compact and medium to full-bodied with abundant fine-grained tannins that are right now a little stiff. It ends quite dry and would need a little more time in bottle to harmonize. This is a great, modern Rioja. Mind the price tag, though. 1'200 bottles.

89/100 Punkte Robert Parker August 31, 2018
The medium-pink 2017 Cotes du Rhone Rose La Dame Rousse is another top example of this cuvée. It offers raspberry, pear and melon flavors, a plump, medium-bodied mouthfeel and a long, citrusy finish. Crisp and clean, it should be consumed over the next several months.

94+/100 Punkte Robert Parker, August 31, 2018
The golden-yellow colored NV Grand Cru Le Mesnil sur Oger Diapason displays a deep, intense yet fresh, fine and complex bouquet of great elegance and terroir expression with chalk and citrus notes. Vinified 45% in small oak barrels, this is an intense, fresh and elegant grand cru, and the finish is intense and perfectly ripe but still precise, refined and delicately salty. This is a truly smart assemblage of two contrasting vintages (2008 and 2009) that takes the best of both to compose something new and complete. It's an excellent cuvée indeed. Bottled in April 2010 and disgorged as Extra Brut on December 12th, 2017. Tasted April 2018.

17/20 Punkte La Revue du Vin de France 2019

94+/100 Punkte Robert Parker, August 31, 2018
The golden-yellow colored NV Grand Cru Le Mesnil sur Oger Diapason displays a deep, intense yet fresh, fine and complex bouquet of great elegance and terroir expression with chalk and citrus notes. Vinified 45% in small oak barrels, this is an intense, fresh and elegant grand cru, and the finish is intense and perfectly ripe but still precise, refined and delicately salty. This is a truly smart assemblage of two contrasting vintages (2008 and 2009) that takes the best of both to compose something new and complete. It's an excellent cuvée indeed. Bottled in April 2010 and disgorged as Extra Brut on December 12th, 2017. Tasted April 2018.

17/20 Punkte La Revue du Vin de France 2019

96/100 Punkte Guía Peñín 2018

95+/100 Punkte Robert Parker, Oct 2016
The wine that used to be the top of the range until the old-vine, single-vineyard Cariñena was released is the 2013 Doix Costers de Vinyes Velles. It is a phenomenal blend of 55% Cariñena and 45% Garnacha from very old vines planted on schist (llicorella) slopes in the village of Poboleda. Dark, almost opaque with a bright border, the nose is more about black fruit, peat, graphite and some shoe polish, with a generous dose of oak, a little raw (from youth) but with harmony and huge potential to develop. The bunches are hand-harvested and the grapes selected one by one in a double sorting table and fermented in stainless steel. The wine matured in new French oak barriques for 16 months, in a straightforward process, because what's important here is the quality of the grapes, mostly from centenary vines. There is great harmony in the palate, too, intense and penetrating without being aggressive, elegant and balanced in an XXL way. I see great f

93/100 Punkte Guía Peñín 2019

94/100 Punkte Robert Parker April 2018
Certainly riper and with a little less acidity, the 2015 Doix Costers de Vinyes Velles is a similar blend of 55% extremely old Cariñena and 45% very old Garnacha matured in new French oak barrels for 16 months. The fruit is black, and the palate reveals abundant, fine-grained tannins and integrated acidity. A powerful vintage for Doix.

93/100 Punkte Guía Peñín 2019

94/100 Punkte Robert Parker April 2018
Certainly riper and with a little less acidity, the 2015 Doix Costers de Vinyes Velles is a similar blend of 55% extremely old Cariñena and 45% very old Garnacha matured in new French oak barrels for 16 months. The fruit is black, and the palate reveals abundant, fine-grained tannins and integrated acidity. A powerful vintage for Doix.

93/100 Punkte Guía Peñín 2019

94/100 Punkte Robert Parker April 2018
Certainly riper and with a little less acidity, the 2015 Doix Costers de Vinyes Velles is a similar blend of 55% extremely old Cariñena and 45% very old Garnacha matured in new French oak barrels for 16 months. The fruit is black, and the palate reveals abundant, fine-grained tannins and integrated acidity. A powerful vintage for Doix.

91+/100 Punkte Robert Parker June 2018
The 2017 Dolcetto d'Alba is even more Dolcetto-like in this hot vintage. This Piedmont variety loves a hot, dry summer, and that's exactly what it got during this scorching growing season. The bouquet bursts open to raw plum and succulent flavors that include dried blackberry and candied cherry. This wine is particularly opulent, rich and exuberant. It's almost too much of a good thing, in a positive way. Luciano Sandrone tells me this was the first vintage in his long winemaking career in which he harvested his Dolcetto before the end of August.

88/100 Punkte Robert Parker Dec 30, 2016
The 2014 Dorando is a 100% Malcantone Chardonnay fermented in concrete eggs and wooden vats. The citrus-colored wine opens with a clear, fresh and pretty intense bouquet of ripe white fruit, melon, lime and kumquat flavors. Medium-bodied, round and fresh on the palate this is an elegant, well-structured and nicely salty food wine, with an excellent phenolic grip and tension. Ginger flavors in the good aftertaste. The 2014 is still young, but perfect with all kinds of fish and white meats.

92/100 Punkte Robert Parker, May 2016
The 2012 Dut' Un is a fantastic and unusual 50/50 blend of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc that magically manages to deliver variety typicity for both grapes despite the vast differences between them. You definitely get the Sauvignon on the nose with pretty aromas of wild sage and passion fruit. The Chardonnay comes through thanks to the richness and the suppleness of the mouthfeel. The combination is really spectacular.

92/100 Punkte Robert Parker June 2019
The 2016 El Espinal is a Maturana Tinta produced in a joint venture with Miguel Ángel Mato, who owns the vineyard in San Vicente de a Sonsierra and works with his horse for others like the Eguren family and Benjamín Romeo. This is the first vintage of this unusual wine made from vines regrafted from Garnacha to Maturana Tinta. I also tasted the 2017 next to this 2016 from a higher-yielding year; the wine had a shorter élevage (12 months in barrel), as the wine is a bit lighter. They didn't really want the green pepper the variety can easily deliver and waited a bit longer to pick the grapes and get aromas of white pepper, bay leaf and licorice, and this has less herbal notes than the 2017. It mixes some dark cherries with those varietal notes. This is drinking nicely today and might not be as long lived as the 2017.

93/100 Punkte Robert Parker June 2019
One of two new single-vineyard reds, the 2017 El Espinal comes from a plot in San Vicente de la Sonsierra at 650 meters in altitude, on sandy soils with clay and limestone surrounded by pine trees. The particularity here is that Maturana Tinta (a.k.a. Castests, a relative of Carmenere) was regrafted on Garnacha some 25 years ago, and this is a varietal Maturana, which is quite rare. It fermented in 225-liter barrels and matured in 600-liter barrels for 15 months. There is more concentration and more of everything, including the peppery and herbal aromas, and a pungent note of freshly cracked back peppercorn on the palate. It's a more powerful and long-lived year, and it's impossible to guess as Rioja because the profile is completely Atlantic and would fool almost everybody in a blind tasting. So, it's not for you if you hate the herbal character of the Bordeaux wines. 1,200 bottles were filled in March 2019.

94/100 Punkte Guía Peñín 2018

94/100 Punkte Robert Parker December 2018
The 2014 El Terroir has a little more depth and complexity than the previous year, even if both vintages were cold and rainy, but this 2014 seems to have more complexity, depth and nuance. It's medium bodied with fine-grained tannins and has very good balance. This cuvée seems to be improving vintage after vintage, they keep working their same vineyards, they keep improving their knowledge, and they are more experienced. The barrels are older and the integration is better. This is earthier and a little wilder than La Dama.

95/100 Punkte Guía Peñín 2019

94/100 Punkte Robert Parker December 2018
It felt like the 2015 El Terroir was more austere than the 2014, even if the year was more generous, especially on the palate, where the wine shows strong minerality. It's more telluric than 2014, a slightly darker shade of blue, and it opens up with time in the glass. This wine has achieved a very good level, with a rare combination of power and elegance, especially in this 2015. 26,315 bottles were filled in May 2017.

95/100 Punkte Guía Peñín 2019

94/100 Punkte Robert Parker December 2018
It felt like the 2015 El Terroir was more austere than the 2014, even if the year was more generous, especially on the palate, where the wine shows strong minerality. It's more telluric than 2014, a slightly darker shade of blue, and it opens up with time in the glass. This wine has achieved a very good level, with a rare combination of power and elegance, especially in this 2015. 26,315 bottles were filled in May 2017.

95/100 Punkte Guía Peñín 2019

94/100 Punkte Robert Parker December 2018
It felt like the 2015 El Terroir was more austere than the 2014, even if the year was more generous, especially on the palate, where the wine shows strong minerality. It's more telluric than 2014, a slightly darker shade of blue, and it opens up with time in the glass. This wine has achieved a very good level, with a rare combination of power and elegance, especially in this 2015. 26,315 bottles were filled in May 2017.

93/100 Guía Peñín 2017

92/100 Punkte Robert Parker August 2016
The eponymous 2014 Exopto has an unusual blend, as it's mostly Graciano with 30% Tempranillo and 10% Garnacha. Sometimes Graciano does not ripen properly in cool vintages, so this cuvée was not produced in 2013. In 2014 they did a green harvest and lowered the yields to ensure proper ripening, even in a late and cooler vintage. It fermented in 1,500-liter oak vats with malolactic in barrel the following spring. The upbringing was in 50% new French oak barrels and lasted 18 months, the first six of which with the fine lees, which were not stirred. They managed a good ripening, harvesting quite late into early October. This wine mixes grapes from the warmer and cooler zones of Rioja, so it mixes the characters with focus in the Graciano. It is balsamic and aromatic, with aromas of peppercorns and a core of black fruit. The palate is serious, with depth and silkiness, as well as polished tannins; it is ready for a long life ahead. It could be d

92/100 Punkte Guía Peñín 2018

93/100 Punkte Robert Parker Feb 2018
The eponymous red 2015 Exopto is an atypical blend of 70% Graciano from the south, a grape that can keep very good acidity and ripens nicely in warmer vintages (like 2015) and 30% Tempranillo from old vines. In previous vintages, the wine had less Graciano and some 10% Garnacha, but they didn't like what the Garnacha did to the blend in 2015, so they left it out for the first time ever. It fermented in 1,500-liter oak vats with indigenous yeasts, daily pigéage and malolactic in barrel in the spring. The wine matured in 225- and 500-liter oak casks, and they have reduced the new oak to some 30%. Even though they have reduced the new oak and gone for larger volumes, it's still a little marked by the oak and might need some more time in bottle to finish integrating, because there is very nice stuffing here. It has very healthy acidity that should help it develop nicely in bottle. This is elegant and open, less stressed by tannins, within the power

92/100 Punkte Guía Peñín 2018

93/100 Punkte Robert Parker Feb 2018
The eponymous red 2015 Exopto is an atypical blend of 70% Graciano from the south, a grape that can keep very good acidity and ripens nicely in warmer vintages (like 2015) and 30% Tempranillo from old vines. In previous vintages, the wine had less Graciano and some 10% Garnacha, but they didn't like what the Garnacha did to the blend in 2015, so they left it out for the first time ever. It fermented in 1,500-liter oak vats with indigenous yeasts, daily pigéage and malolactic in barrel in the spring. The wine matured in 225- and 500-liter oak casks, and they have reduced the new oak to some 30%. Even though they have reduced the new oak and gone for larger volumes, it's still a little marked by the oak and might need some more time in bottle to finish integrating, because there is very nice stuffing here. It has very healthy acidity that should help it develop nicely in bottle. This is elegant and open, less stressed by tannins, within the power

91+/100 Punkte Robert Parker May 2017
The 2011 Franciacorta Brut Nature shows spicy fizz and steely perlage in the mouth. The wine's energy activates all your tastebuds. The bouquet is subdued in comparison, although it does flow smoothly with lemon custard, tangerine skin and a drying touch of crushed oyster shell. This is a refreshing and tonic Metodo Classico Italian sparkler with the fruity opulence that comes from a warm vintage.

90/100 Punkte Robert Parker Dec 2013
The non-vintage Franciacorta Brut is a very ripe expression with loads of yellow fruit and apricot that add immediate lift and intensity. The mouthfeel is broad and thick with loads of deep texture and creamy intensity on the finish. This elegant Franciacorta Brut (80-20 Chardonnay and Pinot Nero) delivers a soft and expansive interpretation of this premium Italian sparkling wine territory.

90/100 Punkte Robert Parker Dec 2013
The non-vintage Franciacorta Brut is a very ripe expression with loads of yellow fruit and apricot that add immediate lift and intensity. The mouthfeel is broad and thick with loads of deep texture and creamy intensity on the finish. This elegant Franciacorta Brut (80-20 Chardonnay and Pinot Nero) delivers a soft and expansive interpretation of this premium Italian sparkling wine territory.