East Hills Wine Club

1.  Gaja Langhe Sorì San Lorenzo 2001 Collectibles

Score: 96
Price: $374.99
Country: Italy
Region: Piedmont 
Issue: Oct 31, 2005

A very silky wine with berry, cedar and tobacco character. Full-bodied, with fine tannins and a fresh finish. Lovely. Seductive and racy. Very long indeed. Strength yet finesse. Best after 2007. 970 cases made.

2.  2001 Luce Luce - OUT OF STOCK -

Luce 
Tuscany, Italy 
Proprietary Blend (a dry red table wine)
Wine Advocate #164 (Apr 2006)
Daniel Thomases
Robert Parker 93 points 
Drink 2006-2021

Luce della Vite, the former Frescobaldi-Mondavi joint-venture in Montalcino, has now become essentially a Frescobaldi property with Michael Mondavi as minority partner. The main interest, obviously, is the wine, not the business aspects of the operation, and the 2001 Luce, the best made to date, underscores just how well Merlot works with Sangiovese, filling out the frame and softening some of the asperities just as its does with Cabernet in Bordeaux. A full ruby in color, ripe, intense, spicy, and penetrating in aroma, the wine is packed on the palate, broad, substantial, and long, and with the muscles and velvet that only the classiest of wines manage to exhibit. Already drinking beautifully, it will hold for another decade and a half.

3.  2001 P Antinori Tignanello IGT - OUT OF STOCK -

Tuscany, Italy 
Proprietary Blend (a dry red table wine)
Wine Advocate #164 (Apr 2006)
Daniel Thomases
Robert Parker 93 points 
Drink 2006-2021
$94.99

The 2001 Tignanello is an object lesson in how to make Cabernet work with Sangiovese, the two varieties balancing and enhancing one another in admirable symbiosis. (The percentage of Cabernet, in fact, was reduced from the previous 20% to 15% in this vintage, an important sign - I hope - of how the wind is blowing.) A blackish ruby, its perfectly focused plum and cassis fruit, given an additional complexity by notes of sweet herbs and saddle leather, is fully and completely shaped in flavors of impeccable volume, roundness, and depth, caressing and powerful and with an additional power on the close which promises another 15 years of gratifying drinking.