Enticing aromas of dried strawberries and raspberries, together with leaves and bark and a hint of orange cream. Medium-to full-bodied with firm tannins that are still quite angular, but are carrying loads of creamy fruit flavor through the long finish. Structured and very elegant. This is delicious to taste even now, but there’s clearly a long way to go. Will be fabulous from 2025.

The 2018 Barolo Mosconi Vigna Ped shows a pretty, rich disposition with lovely varietal aromas of forest fruit, rose petal, earth and crushed stone. From a site with mixed sand, silt and clay soils, Vigna Ped is stitched tightly together in terms of its fiber and substance, yet it also reveals a very elegant and polished side of the Mosconi site in Monforte d'Alba that always produces rather powerful and age-worthy wines. Production is limited to 5,428 bottles.- ML

The wine rested in first- and second-use French oak barrels, and that influence seems a bit more obvious in this lighter vintage. The wine opens with scents of vanilla, cedar and spice that continue on the palate as the underlying dark cherry and apple-skin flavors begin to emerge. The wine shows plenty of drive and precision, suggesting it will knit together after a few years in the cellar.