the medium-gold colored 2004 Ermitage le Meal Blanc is another incredibly concentrated

as are yields

The great eternal Unico

There is excellent richness to the concentrated and beautifully textured broad-shouldered flavors that possess focused power and a subtle minerality that really comes up on the youthfully austere and strikingly long finish

smoke and iodine

Luciano Sandrone, Barolo Vigne other_regions the medium-gold colored 2004 ErmitageLuciano Sandrone and his daughter Barbara tell me that the 2014 harvest needs explaining. Many are quick to dismiss it given the difficulties of the growing season that saw abundant rain, hail and bombe d'acqua, or "water bombs," which are a dangerous phenomenon with intense rainfall in a very small radius. But hard work does pay off. The Sandrone family employed 38 people for farming, when the average harvest requires only 22 pairs of vineyard hands.