Pignol

Wow. This is Pignolo showing why it's worth saving from extinction. The colour alone is bizarre - like someone mixed Carat with Rosantico and added fairy dust. Opens exactly like an Old Fashioned: bitter herbs, citrus peel, then red fruit smoke and fruit tree resin creeping through. Pine needles again, because this is Bressan. On the palate it's utterly singular - nothing else tastes like this. Round, vaguely sweet, cognac-like in its warmth and depth. Fifteen years old and still mysterious, still holding secrets. It's sensual in that unexpected way - like finding passion in unlikely places. The old colonel who eulogized Pignolo while sitting next to dying vines would weep with joy tasting this. Bressan took a grape that barely wants to exist and turned it into liquid poetry. Long, haunting, unforgettable.