Marco Caprai strikes again with yet another beautiful vintage of his top-shelf red. The 2013 Montefalco Sagrantino 25 Anni is a darkly saturated and thickly extracted wine with a full and generous style. The wine is redolent of dark fruit, tobacco and smoky barbecue. However, the real protagonist is spice: baking and Christmas spice, to be exact...

Plum, dark berry and baking-spice aromas slowly emerge on this full-bodied red. The taut spicy palate offers sour cherry, dried blackberry, ground clove and licorice set against a backbone of assertive but fine-grained tannins. It's still young and primary.

Pretty, ripe fruit with berries, citrus fruit and hints of almonds that follow through to a medium body, fine tannins and a clean and fresh finish. Drink now or hold.

Quite reductive at first but opens up quickly with air to reveal orange peel, dried red cherries, cedar and paprika. Medium to full body, fine and silky tannins, beautiful acidity and a medium-chewy finish. A stylish Brunello. Drink now or hold.

Cedar, red licorice, tar, Christmas pudding, orange peel and dried plums. Full body, chewy tannins, driven acidity and a medium-long finish. Drink in 2020.

Dark cherries, plums, wild strawberries and spices. Medium body, dusty tannins and a tangy and chewy finish. Drink now.

This shows lovely depth on the nose with dark licorice, dried fruit, red meat, blood oranges and Indian spices. Full-bodied and intense, but with real linearity carved out by the bright acidity and firm, grainy tannin backbone, which help to delineate the red-fruited core and lead to a long finish. Drink in 2020.

Pure cherry and strawberry fruit graces this delicate Barolo. Elements of licorice, tar and mineral add complexity and there is adequate structure. Still, this should be approachable early for the light weight and balance. Best from 2021 through 2036.

Delicate scents of banana, honeysuckle and tropical fruit lead the nose on this foaming wine. The off-dry palate offers ripe white peach, pineapple and a dollop of vanilla pastry cream alongside a silky mousse.

This wine is a blend of 70 per cent Corvina with 20 per cent Rondinella and just 5 per cent each of Croatina and Oseleta. It’s deep black-red in colour, and is dark and forceful, sombre yet voluptuous in aroma: a harmonious weave of black chocolate, sloe and elderberry, with the years in oak bringing a cedary refinement. On the palate, it’s a vault of a wine: deep...

This is vibrant, saturated with blackberry, black cherry, iron, earth and tobacco flavors. A solid structure lends support and the finish is long. Shows terrific harmony and texture. Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon. Best from 2020 through 2033.

A decadent nose showing dried herbs, underbrush, black-cherry compote, mulberries, dark chocolate, mocha and cigar box. Full-bodied and very intense with chewy tannins and loads of dark-fruit flavors. Fruit-forward but remains in tune. Drink in 2021.

Plenty of spices and fresh herbs on the nose, such as dried rosemary and nutmeg, to match the underlying dried redcurrants and cranberries. Full-bodied with plenty of concentration, but still shows a very sturdy, tannin backbone and punchy acidity, to drive this through to a long finish. Drink in 2021.

Named for the late matriarch of the property, this is a blend of 76% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Malbec and 5% Petit Verdot, all of it grown on hillside estate vineyards. It dances around cherry, cassis and rose petal, the core of the wine soft in integrated tannins and oak. Balanced in weight, it is undeniably lovely, complex and beautiful. It will do well in the cellar...

This is Schramsberg’s top selection of chardonnay (86 percent of the blend). A quarter of it fermented in oak, which seems to point up the wine’s gingery spice. With scents of orange blossoms and notes of tangerine, this is leesy and ripe, a rich style to pour with salmon roe in puff pastry shells.

Soft in wild blue fruit, black tea and stemmy earth, this wine has a brooding earthiness that’s exotic and beguiling. It invites with a perfume of violet and rose as well as coastal salt and crushed rock, mineral components that accent a grainy texture.

Very vibrant, keenly articulated and concentrated cabernet that offers powerful black cherries and blackberries with dark chocolate and a deep, intense finish. This is full of promise. Try from 2020.

Pure aromas and flavors of currant, cherry and violet are shaded by the sweet smoke of burning vine cuttings and graphite in this intense red. Shows tension and a solid structure that remains long, while earth, tobacco and mineral elements linger. Best from 2023 through 2042.

A dense, brooding red, this offers plenty of dark fruit, earth, mineral, spice and smoke flavors. The tannins set the pace for now, yet there is depth and complexity, as well as a vibrant core. Builds to a long, stony, meaty finish, showing great energy and persistence. Best from 2024 through 2045.

Novello. Lustrous and healthy mid ruby. Gorgeous, cool nose of red fruit, herbs and raspberry and with a fine layer of spice underneath. Iron and orange-peel hints. Very complete on the nose. Very serious palate of liquorice and cherry and bags of tannins. Finely tuned balance and just too youthful. Very long and a little austere, and with gripping tannins. Big, big struct