On a par with the 2016 for outright quality, this modern Camartina is a very different style, which shows just how the wine has come in the last five years. Some frost damage in April lowered yields, but rainfall in May set the vines up for the hot, dry summer, althought fortunately there were no extreme heat spikes as experienced in 2020. The vines were refreshed by rain in the autumn, prolonging the growing season. Aromatic and lifted, this charms with its violet and hedgerow berry fragrance. It's full of energy, tightly coiled and beautifully balanced, with a menthol-fresh attack which gives way to precise pomegranate, strawberry and blackberry overlaying wood. Great poise – and tremendous potential.

Mid yellowish straw. Waxy and herbal on the nose with good structure and rich palate entry but with density counterbalanced by suitable acidity. A hint of lime on the end. Broad-beamed and long but I'd love to see this with a little more bottle age and development. I have based my suggested drinking dates on the results of this tasting. This is a white to accompany all sorts of savoury dishes – with creamy sauces perhaps.

The 2018 vintage of Gran Selezione from Querciabella is a touch lower in octane than the 2019 version, as this wine comes in at an even fourteen percent alcohol. It was handled identically to the 2019 in the cellars, with its malo in barrels and its aging done in large oak botti. The 2018 Gran Selezione delivers a superb bouquet of red and black cherries, spit-roasted gamebird, coffee bean, campfire, a very complex foundation of galestro minerality, fresh oregano, incipient notes of hazelnut and a very discreet framing of cedary oak. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied, precise and very pure, with outstanding depth of fruit at the core, great mineral undertow, ripe, seamless tannins and a long, bouncy and very complex, impeccably balanced finish. This too needs a good decade in the cellar to really start to hit its stride, but it is going to be another brilliant wine. 2034-2075.

When I wrote my feature on legendary Chianti producer Querciabella a few years back, I mentioned that I felt their Mongrana Rosso bottling, made from relatively new vineyards in the coastal region of Maremma, may well be the finest value in Tuscan red wine for the cellar to be found anywhere in Italy. Their beautifully refined 2022 version has done nothing to dissuade me of this notion! The wine comes in at 13.5 percent octane in this vintage and is composed from its now traditional cépages of fifty percent sangiovese and twenty-five percent each of merlot and cabernet sauvignon. The wine’s refined aromatic constellation wafts from the glass in a mix of sweet dark berries, cassis, cigar wrapper, dark soil tones, fresh oregano and a topnote of distant bonfire. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied and still quite tightly-knit, with a good core of fruit, fine soil transparency and grip, firm tannins and lovely balance on the long and promising finish. This is a structured vintage of Mongrana and will need plenty of cellaring to soften up its undercarriage of tannin, but in due course, it will be a lovely wine. 2035-2065. 

A sweet, floral, slightly tangy nose presents notes of cherry blossom, raspberry, potting soil, citrus peel and pepper. The fruit notes deepen on a palate of cherry, wild strawberry, raspberry jam and blood orange, as tannins grip at the edges of your tongue, before acid lifts a cool, peppery finish.