Pio Cesare Barolo DOCG 2016

Wine Enthusiast (96 points): Enticingly fragrant, this wine offers alluring scents of iris, rose, perfumed berry and wild herb. It's full bodied and elegant, delivering crushed raspberry, juicy Marasca cherry, star anise and orange zest set against a backbone of taut, fine-grained tannins. Bright acidity keeps it balanced and lends intensity. Drink 2024– 2036. Editors' Choice

Robert Parker (95 points): Traditionalists happily fall back to this wine from Pio Cesare. This historic winery, now in its fifth generation and located within the city limits of Alba, takes care to shape a classic interpretation without too many extra bells or whistles. The fact that Pio Cesare now has the flashier Barolo Ornato and the newly created Barolo Mosconi, only gives more importance to this wine. The Pio Cesare 2016 Barolo offers deep, dark fruit with a mingling of spice, smoke, tar and smoke. This wine represents a blend of fruit from five comuni, or villages: Cascina Ornato, La Serra and Briccolina in Serralunga d'Alba; Gustava and Garretti in Grinzane Cavour; Roncaglie in La Morra; Ravera in Novello; and starting with the 2015 vintage, Mosconi in Monforte d'Alba.

James Suckling (95 points): Pretty sweetness and ripeness to this with cherries, dried strawberries and chocolate. It's full-bodied with round, firm tannins. Very long and intense. A little tight now. Complex and subtle at this stage. Give it two or three years to come around. Try after 2022.