GAJA BARBARESCO COSTA RUSSI 750ML 2014

The 2014 Barbaresco Costa Russi is a beautiful wine that delivers profound color saturation with deep ruby highlights and blackish intensity. I would describe the nose as being more horizontal rather than vertical, if that makes sense. In other words, the bouquet makes its approach with wide intensity and large-scale aromas of black fruit, spice, tar, leather and licorice. It offers fewer of the sudden high notes or moments of sharpness that you get in 2013. Despite the common perception that this was a very cool vintage, the fruit here actually tastes riper and rounder than you might expect. That's because the vintage heat all came toward the end of the growing season, and the Gaja family left fruit on the vines to the end. In the mouth, the wine shows depth and finesse with some stubborn firmness at this young stage. It needs to flesh out further with more bottle aging.

2014 offered a tricky growing season, and some estates produced no single vineyard wines, instead choosing to blend what they had. Barbaresco in general fared better than Barolo. Although this is closed on the nose, the texture is rich and suave, showing breadth of flavour as well as concentration. It's unusually tannic for 2014, but enlivened by spicy notes. It's still rather subdued, but has admirable persistence.