Rustic and elegant, this slightly young Aglianico is a steal.

Paying only $20 per bottle when I bought this feels like an absolute steal after drinking this incredible wine.

Opened up this delightful Aglianico tonight to enjoy while playing games with friends and it developed beautifully over the course of the next 4 hours. Decanting is for sure beneficial to this wine and helps bring out some more of the secondary notes while letting the acid and tannins temper themselves a bit.

In the glass the wine appears a bright ruby color with hints of garnet and age just beginning to show. Good solid color. No visual faults. No sediment.

Immediately on the nose I am hit with black cherry and raspberry with background notes of cassis that begin to show and assert itself as the wine decants. The wine is smokey and gamey, smoked meats with hints of leather. slight savory aspect to the wine, but not too much. after decant, more secondary notes of earth, cacao and coffee show up along with some dust as the red berry notes begin to fall back.

when drinking, on the palate the wine is immediately acidic, medium plus to full acid, medium plus tannins, full bodied, some alcohol burn at the back of the throat. slight smokey aspect to the wine along with some cassis and black cherry/cassis. The fruits are ripe but just barely so and ever so slightly tart lending to the acidity that hits right in the cheeks. Gamey and rustic while being very well balanced. Slight white pepper note to it. The wine is clean and a good representation of the grape and region with no signs of oak influence (at least on my palate). Some earthy cacao and almost coffee notes begin to show up after 2 hours in the decanter with a slight dust note.

This wine is absolutely delicious. a pleasure to the nose and similarly great on the palate. Drinking well now but could benefit from more time in bottle. I have 3 more bottles that I'm looking forward to drinking over the next 10-15 years or so.

91pts.