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letuffeau.com
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FREE TASTING & MEET THE WINEMAKER
~ Saturday ~
15/08
2.00pm - 4.00m
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Vintage Launch
with
Alessandro Stefani
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STEFANI WINES
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Free and unstructured, no bookings required … though we encourage attendees to make a booking for a table at Le Tuffeau following the event, from 4.00pm
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“I was overjoyed when a few months ago, following their recent bottling, I sampled the 2024 releases from Alessandro Stefani alongside their winemaker. I have been heaping praise on Victorian red wines from this vintage; its mild, elongated ripening season ensuring that it will be a classical, and classic, vintage.
The wines in bottle did not disappoint. Indeed, they were immensely impressive. Consequently, I had had to contain my excitement until such a time when Alessandro deemed the wines ready for release.
Now is that time.
Naturally, a new release from Alessandro is cause for a special event. Please join Alessandro and I in tasting through his newly released red wines!”
— David
~ on tasting ~
2024 Yarra Valley Sangiovese ‘La Vignola’
2024 Yarra Valley Sangiovese ‘Boccolo’
2024 ‘Supera II’ (100% Cabernet Franc)
2024 ‘Supera’ (100% Cabernet Sauvignon)
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For those unable to make the tasting …
available for pre-order
by reply email only
I
Alessandro Stefani 2024 Yarra Valley Sangiovese ‘La Vignola’
(Shelf Price: $44.00)
Offer: $36.00
“Alessandro Stefani's 2024 Sangiovese ‘La Vignola’ has an alluringly fragrant bouquet of cherries, plum blossom, blood orange, and sage. Complexifying touches of clay, Virginian tobacco, and iodine add nuance. The palate is fresh and lively, undercut by a fine line of acidity with lightly chalky phenolics in the later stages. I feel in 2024 the tannins are both finer and fuller, and the wine has better presence across the palate; fresh and plump on opening, then streamlined and elegant, and gaining focus and delineation towards the mineral conclusion. The two years in barrel really worked their magic here. Red and black cherries, raspberry, orange zest, a wealth of aromatic herbs, black pepper, and a hint of stony nearly ore-like minerality on the close. Easily the finest, and most serious, rendition of this charming wine yet released. Fine.”
— David
II
Alessandro Stefani 2024 Yarra Valley Sangiovese ‘Boccolo’
(Shelf Price: $84.00)
Offer: $72.00
“Elegantly brooding to both the eye and the nose, the 2024 Sangiovese ‘Boccolo’ from Alessandro Stefani is initially unyielding and requires aeration to coax forth a stern yet enormously complex bouquet of Cohiba cigar wrapper, thyme, cypress, vine smoke and campfire ash, both green and black cardamom, bitter dark chocolate, dry and friable red earth, and ferruginous ore. If I have not mentioned fruit it is only that it feels more secondary at this stage, with this supporting role filled in by black cherry, cassis, some plum, and violets. The palate is utterly silken, a wine of remarkable control and poise. The tannic profile is youthfully powerful though never burly and the phenolics are very fine. The wine has great verticality, as if soaring up to the cheekbones, coupled to excellent length, straight down the middle of the tongue and refusing, to its credit, to fan out on the conclusion. Instead, it locks down and grows ever more mineral and precise. Everything crescendos. The flavours
are in a similar savoury vein to the bouquet, yet there is good piquant juiciness to the fruit; black cherry, kirsch, plum, and black currant are all wrapped bitter dark chocolate, marjoram and thyme, cardamoms, and stony nuances. Blood orange and flecks of chiselled rock add nuance to the close. Excellent. Again, the best vintage yet of this wine. Indeed the ‘Boccolo’ continues its reign as Australia's finest Sangiovese without a competitor in sight. Years off being ready to drink.”
— David
III
Alessandro Stefani 2024 ‘Supera II’
(Shelf Price: $65.00)
Offer: $55.00
100% Cabernet Franc
“Hints of violet infuse mid-ruby. No luridity. A wine of arresting fragrance, Alessandro Stefani's 2024 Cabernet Franc, now reborn as 'Supera II', unfurls nuances of Cypriot Tobacco, dried blood, cold embers, and vine smoke. This aromatic profile is anchored by crushed red and blue fruits, and hints of sliced brown mushrooms. Notions of split-log, cellar, wet limestone, and earth add considerable complexity. Much to ponder. Silken on the palate, though brilliantly fresh from arresting acidity and chalky phenolics, it possesses fine and powdery tannins that underscore its long and resonant finish. Crushed and slightly tart blueberries, raspberry, and light cherry are wrapped balsam herbs, complemented by strawberry, mineral, fennel seed, and mineral notes. If I seem to falter here it is that shape is still far more important at this early stage; the potential for development, bound up in this wine, is immense. A wine for years hence yet delicious still at present. Echoes of St. Emilion once
again, rather than Saumur. Very good.”
— David
IV
Alessandro Stefani 2024 ‘Supera’
(Shelf Price: $54.00)
Offer: $48.00
100% Cabernet Sauvignon
“A fully opaque, and quite luscious, ruby-violet to the eye with a touch of luridity in the trim. Richly concentrated, the 2024 Cabernet Sauvignon ‘Supera’ by Alessandro Stefani has a delightfully mineral aromatic profile with wet river stones, loam, cedar, Darjeeling tea, and dried cherry fragrances leading fresher nuances of smashed rock and graphite, thyme, dark cigar wrapper, black cherry, and blood orange. Wreathed around this enormously complex aromatic core are nuances of mint, blood plum, incense, cracked black pepper, and cold cellar. I could ponder the aromatics for hours. The palate is immense; mouthcoating, fully saturating in both length and breadth; fine and layered tannin which possesses a singular quality of directionality, reaching far to the back of the palate and laying the long line on which all development will take place. The wine resonates for some time after the last drop has been swallowed. Up front, and along the middle of the tongue: wet stone wrapped in black
cherry, crushed raspberry, and sage and marjoram; then, further out in waves: blood orange and peel of same, thyme, black tea, clay, and tobacco; on the periphery: touches of ore, pipe clay, candied rose petals, pepper, and cedar. I keep returning to the glass. The 2024 ‘Supera’ is the highlight of the cellar this year from Alessandro Stefani, and an achievement more generally in Yarra Valley Cabernet. Excellent.”
— David
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Please join us for a drink soon. Reservations preferred.
Bookings and after-6.00pm access: (03) 9419 3867
Tue. 11.00 am–6.00 pm
Wed.–Sat. 11.00 am–11.00 pm
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If you would like any of the above, would like to come by for a private appointment, or just have some questions — please let us know.