Good full red. Pure, high-pitched nose offers minerals, brown spices, Cuban tobacco and menthol. Powerful and deep, with strong minerality giving energy and sap to the wine. Perhaps best today on the sweet, lush back end, where the wine's minerality contributes to a rising, wonderfully long and fresh aftertaste. (Incidentally, an early look at the '05 suggests that the new vintage of this wine will also be a standout, but it was the floral, minerally '05 Rocche that most impressed me for its sheer intensity and sappiness in September.)

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The 2004 Barolo Lazzarito, from a vineyard in Serralunga, possesses superb depth in its ripe dark fruit, smoke, licorice, tar and sweet toasted oak. It too is a massive, powerful Barolo and the Serralunga terroir adds an extra dimension to the wine's brooding personality. Even though new oak has been reduced to 30%, the Lazzarito remains the estate's most modern Barolo.

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Purple/ruby in color. The nose is complex with dusty cherries and some tar. Light tannins. Dried cherries on the palate. Tastes mature and ready to go.