Bruno Besa: Garnet to tawny. Open, complex, mature, mineral, small-red-fruit, leather, tobacco-leaf, road-tar, violets and roses nose. Medium body, balanced, clean, complex palate, with long, earthy, finish. Classic Serralunga Barolo for medium-term aging. 94

Andrew Jefford: Dark, dense black-red but now translucent. Plenty of polyphenols nonetheless. Sweet, warm, charming, with the innate Serralunga complexity, but needs a little longer for full articulacy. Bodes well: warm, subtle, full, tarry. Time in the glass (oxygen) unlocks another world altogether: flowers and lifted fruits of sublimity. Wow: lots here. Dense, weighty, ballasted. A great freight of density and extract at present, and this is certainly a wine you would need to age in order for its aromatic potential to emerge and sing; at present, it is almost aromatically repressed. But what is here is very fine and I would counsel patience. Huge depth and drive on the palate, but nothing clumsy or forced to this at all; it is driven by the motor of great fruit and great soils. Every time I go back to this wine after tasting its peers I realize the grandeur of its aromatic resource—flowers, fruits, stone, almost a last word ... awesome wine. My glass is empty! I don’t know what this is, of course, but it is certainly the fruit of a very great vineyard vinified inspirationally. Congratulations. 97

Michael Palij: Shows a discreet but complex nose of hawthorn, red currant, cocoa powder, licorice, earth, truffle, vanilla, clove, and charred wood. The palate is dominated by tannins—there is some sweet spice from oak, but the overriding impression is that of astringency. The finish is drawn to a close by the oak rather than by the fruit. 88