2006 Le Serre Nuove

The 2006 Le Serre Nuove, the estate's second wine from Ornellaia, will challenge many of the top bottlings in this vintage for years to come. The 2006 is a rich, sumptuous wine bursting with ripe dark fruit, smoke, tobacco, grilled herbs, new leather, minerals and tar. The wine possesses superb density and explosive, utterly irresistible personality. At roughly one-third the price of its big sibling Ornellaia, the 2006 Le Serre Nuove is a must-purchase wine.

The 2006 Le Serre Nuove, the estate’s second wine from Ornellaia, will challenge many of the top bottlings in this vintage for years to come. The 2006 is a rich, sumptuous wine bursting with ripe dark fruit, smoke, tobacco, grilled herbs, new leather, minerals and tar. The wine possesses superb density and an explosive, utterly irresistible personality. At roughly one-third the price of its big sibling Ornellaia, the 2006 Le Serre Nuove is a must-purchase wine. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2022. This set of new 2006s from Tenuta dell’Ornellaia leaves me looking for words that can adequately capture the pure magic and sheer profoundness the property has achieved in this important, hallmark vintage. I will try with one word: Monumental. The Ornellaia team led by Oenologist Axel Heinz and Agronomist/General Manager Leonardo Raspini has done a fabulous job with these wines, which have never failed to literally send shivers down my spine on the multiple occasions I have tasted them. At this stage the 2007 Serre Nuove, Ornellaia and Masseto are shaping up to be ripe, relatively early-drinking wines without the stuffing or sheer vibrancy of the 2006s. I recently had the privilege of revisiting 17 vintages of Ornellaia (all from magnum) spanning vintages 1985-2006 at an incredible tasting that will be covered in an in-depth article on www.erobertparker.com in the coming months. Importer: Folio Fine Wine Partners, Napa, CA; tel. (707) 256-2700;

Black cherry, blackcurrant and tomato stalk. The fruit bundles onto the tongue all at once, making the finish rather brief, though with a good peppery spice flavour. Grippy tannins belie its food-centric inclination and would reward a few more years of bottle age. (RH)