Reverdito Michele, Barolo (Piedmont, Italy) 2009

It is a damned good thing that I resisted the temptation to write this wine off on account of a big blast of oak that hit me on my first sniff of it.  A second look at the wine (at the end of the flight in which it was presented to me) showed that the oak is of very high quality, and also that the wine is actually a quite proportional rendition of the modern style, with lots of underlying fruit energy that effectively counterbalances the assertiveness of the wood.  The wine will require years of cellaring to hit its optimal balance point, but I have no doubt that it will make the move from excellent now to outstanding in the future.