Alessandro Stefani 2024 Yarra Valley Sangiovese 'Boccolo'

"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. Excellent." — David