We've never welcomed a Barbera to our Best In Show selection before and pow! Here it is. Fittingly it's a Nizza wine, this DOCG having come into being in 2014 to showcase a Barbera-only subzone formerly included in DOCG Barbera d'Asti Superiore and centered around the town of Nizza Monferrato. It's not a shy wine, and it left our judges excited: powerful black fruits with orange and blueberry scents layered into spicy, creamy oak. On the palate it's rich, deep and heady, with more orange and black fruit partnered with voluptuous tannins from both skins and oak. It has all the athleticism of the variety- but if you're one of those who have found Barbera's acidity to be almost too aggressive and attacking in the past, this wine may reassure; it's balanced and vivacious here, thanks to the overall richness and wealth of the whole.

This wine arrives like it already has a reservation at a restaurant you need to know someone to get into. Blueberry and blackberry jam, sweet baking spices, cedar, and blue and purple flowers open with real poise. Lush and bold, cooked dark fruits, and generous spice rounded by new oak into something refined and sure of itself.