2001 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva, Case Basse di Gianfranco Soldera

Tasted blind and you'd be forgiven for perhaps placing this wine three hundred miles to the north-west in Piedmont (or even further west near Chambolle), among one of Barolo's finest vineyards; such is this beautiful wine's rose-tinted, whispy raspberry kirsch and tea-leaf perfume which delights the nose. On the palate, the flow of free-run fruit is both potent as well as supremely graceful, charged with raspberry essence intensity and couched amid a fine, porcelain structure - all cleansed by a deliciously pure acidity. A terrific wine and still only a bambino.

Irrestisble even now but best placed in a cellar until 2011 and then enjoyed for a further 20 years, preferably alongside a filet of beef.
(David Berry Green, BBR Buyer)