This beautiful, luminously hued Barolo opens with enticing scents of perfumed berry, dark spice, eucalyptus, violet and forest floor. The savory palate combines elegance and structure, delivering juicy red cherry, raspberry compote, star anise and wild mint framed in taut, refined tannins that give it a smooth but firm texture. Bright acidity keeps energized. What a stunner. Drink 2024–2038. KERIN O’KEEFE

Valter Fissore’s Ravera is typically reticent in youth, but this wine from the 2018 vintage shows an early exuberance in its red-cherry and raspberry flavors heightened by scents of rose petals and balsamic herbs. The tannins, while taut, are a bit softer and rounder in this vintage. Since 2017, Fissore has been including some stems in his Barolo fermentations—about 20 to 30 percent in this wine—which enhances the freshness and adds some complex spice notes to the finish.

Based on the Lampià (60%) and Michet (40%) biotypes from 70-year-old vines, this Ravera is aged for 24 months in large untoasted Slavonian oak. Mostly floral aromas of rose, violet and pot pourri, with strawberry and darker fruits allied to the vibrancy of a balsamic whiff, introduce a savoury blood orange flavour on the dense and weighted palate. It has ripe and dusty tannins with great extraction on the mid-palate, crisp acidity and the fruit concentration to achieve an amazing balance. It will gain further complexity with ageing.

The Elvio Cogno 2018 Barolo Ravera is becoming one of the most important wines in Novello, and it performs very nicely in this more challenging vintage. In fact, 2018 helps to cement Ravera's steadfast reputation precisely because it performs so well despite spells of humidity and heat. The wine shows small-berry detailing with rust and crushed stone at the back. There is a point of bitterness that accompanies the tannins of this full-bodied wine. Production is 15,000 bottles.

This is alluring for the strawberry, cherry and currant flavors, with details of iron, tar and tobacco. Starts out silky in texture, then the structure sneaks up on you as this red builds to a long finish. Best from 2025 through 2042. 625 cases made, 350 cases imported.

Nice complexity to the nose, showing red cherry, walnut shell and pungent earth. Hints of pressed flowers, too. The palate is medium-bodied with lightly firm, velvety tannins and a very tightly wound core of fruit and tannin at the heart of the wine. The lighter structure is set, reflecting the vintage, but there’s enough going on for positive development with bottle age. Refined feel to this. Hold until 2024.

This 2018 Barolo Ravera from Elvio Cogno has a light nose with some spice and floral notes like wild flowers. It becomes a little creamy on standing. On the palate it is light but lively, with bright cherry, green olive and tart red fruit flavors. Full of juicy, bright freshness, it has a lively, sappy style which will show its best paired with ragù or pasta with a tomato-based sauce. A pretty and vibrant wine.

The 2018 Barolo Ravera is a powerful, rustic wine. Wild cherry, cedar, leather, orange zest, tobacco, herbs, menthol, iron and game race across the palate. Austere and wild, the 2018 is an assertive Barolo that will require time to come together. Even then, I expect the 2018 will always be more rustic than elegant, although I must add the 2018 compensates for some of its rough contours with good depth and tons of Nebbiolo complexity. -- Antonio Galloni