Winemaker Notes
#78 Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2025
Deep ruby red with garnet hues, nose rich, appealing, fresh, wide with scent of Pinot Nero grapes even if softly refined in oak. Fine, delightful, smooth, medium to full bodied very well-balanced with a pleasant mineral long finish. Tannins and acidity go together very well, and the result is strength and harmony at the same time.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Wild berries and a hint of autumn leaves are the ultimate flirt, drawing you in with their charm. Succulent red fruit and a spice sidekick are the power couple, rolling deep with silky tannins.
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Wine Spectator
A beam of dried and plumped cherry fruit flavors is pure and enticing, with fresh acidity, chalky tannins and a minerally underpinning. Dried dill and thyme, smoke and leather aromatics accent the cherry fruit and linger on the creamy finish.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
Containing an exciting mix of wine producing subregions, Lombardy is Italy’s largest in size and population. Good quality Pinot noir, Bonarda and Barbera have elevated the reputation of the plains of Oltrepò Pavese. To its northeast in the Alps, Valtellina is the source of Italy’s best Nebbiolo wines outside of Piedmont. Often missed in the shadow of Prosecco, Franciacorta produces collectively Italy’s best Champagne style wines, and for the fun and less serious bubbly, find Lambrusco Mantovano around the city of Mantua. Lugana, a dry white with a devoted following, is produced to the southwest of Lake Garda.