Once again one of the finest values in Montalcino, Neri’s 2011 Rosso di Casanova di Nero is quite dark in this vintage. Dark cherries, flowers and spices literally burst from the glass in an explosive Rosso that is sure to deliver considerable pleasure over the next few years. Rosso di Casanova is 95% Sangiovese and 5% Colorino. I tasted the wine from tank just prior to bottling. Anticipated maturity: 2013-2016. Giacomo Neri is brutally honest in describing 2008 as a challenging vintage marked by significant rain and hail events. Overall production is down 40% across the board. Neri’s 2008s are impressive for the year, however, and are a testament to a grower who is willing to make the hard choices necessary to ensure consistently high quality. Importer: Dalla Terra, Napa, CA; tel. (707) 259-5405

I tasted the 2010 Rosso di Casanova di Neri from tank just a few days before it was scheduled to be bottled. Dark cherries, plums, flowers and spices literally jump out of the glass in this vinous, bright red. The 2010 Rosso is a great, budget-priced wine from Giacomo Neri. The blend is 95% Sangiovese and 5% Colorino. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2016. Giacomo Neri describes 2007 as a year with a warm spring followed by a cold, dry summer. Neri is one of the few growers who considers 2007 cooler than 2006, showing just how diverse Montalcino is. Temperatures were unusually warm during the spring, but then moderated over a coolish summer that saw very little rain. Acidities are a bit higher in 2007 than 2006. All that said, my tastings of the 2007s reveal them to be silkier and more polished young than the firmer 2006s. Needless to say, it will be fascinating to follow the evolution of both vintages over the coming years. Readers who want to learn more about Casanova di Neri should check out my video interview with Giacomo Neri on www.erobertparker.com Importer: Dalla Terra, Napa, CA; tel. (707) 259-5405

I tasted the 2009 Rosso di Casanova di Neri from tank just before it was scheduled to be bottled. The wine shows gorgeous juiciness and richness with a round, harmonious personality that captures the essence of the house style. Anticipated maturity: 2011-2015. My visit with Giacomo Neri was fascinating. I had the opportunity to taste a number of fabulous wines, but the bottle that left the deepest impression on me was the 1981 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva. Though not explicitly identified as such, the 1981 Riserva was the first wine the estate made from the Cerretalto vineyard. The wine spent a full six years in cask, yet remains fresh and striking today, despite the average (at best) quality of the vintage. Most interesting of all is that the house’s trademark richness was already in place years before Giacomo Neri took over wine making duties from his father.Importer: Dalla Terra, Napa, CA; tel. (707) 259-5405

The 2008 Rosso di Montalcino (labeled Rosso di Casanova di Neri for the US) is a beautiful, impeccably balanced wine. There is lovely transparency and elegance to the fruit in an expression of Sangiovese that offers gorgeous roundness in a mid-weight, elegant style. The finish is long, soft and caressing. Even better, this is an outstanding value. Anticipated maturity: 2010-2013. Proprietor Giacomo Neri makes some of the richest, most textured Brunellos readers will come across. The house style favors a lush expression of fruit with a softness that makes the wines very appealing upon release. In recent years the wines have become more elegant, with less of the excessive heaviness that characterized prior vintages. Based on what I tasted from barrel, future vintages hold quite a bit of promise as well. This year, readers – especially those on a budget (who isn’t on a budget these days?) should focus on the 2005 Brunello di Montalcino (sometimes also known as the ‘white label’), which is an overachiever because it includes fruit from the Cerretalto vineyard, the source of the estate’s top wine, which was not bottled in 2005. Importer: Dalla Terra, Napa, CA; tel. (707) 259-5405

Casanova di Neri's 2006 Rosso di Casanova di Neri is a cask-aged blend of 90% Sangiovese and 10% Colorino grown in the Sant-Antimo appellation which lies just beyond the southern border of the Brunello zone. The Sangiovese is aged in 48 and 72 hectoliter casks while the Colorino is aged in smaller 6 hectoliter barrels. The wine is sweet and expansive on the palate, where it offers compelling notes of dark cherries, smoke and tar with outstanding depth and terrific overall balance. Drink this beautifully-balanced, pleasing Rosso over the next few years. It is a great introduction to the house style at a price that won't break the bank. 2006 is the first vintage in which this wine carries that Sant-Antimo designation rather than the Rosso di Montalcino designation of previous vintages. Anticipated maturity: 2008-2011. Properietor Giacomo Neri is excited about the 2003 vintage, which he believes has more potential than critics of the vintage have suggested, although he does think the wines are best suited to near- to mid-term consumption. Among recent vintages Neri cites 2004 and 2006 as those with the most potential. Still, at this level, it is truly the seriousness of the estate that prevails over vintage differences in determining the overall quality of the wines, as readers will be able to judge from these outstanding new releases. Importer: Dalla Terra, Napa, CA; tel. (707) 259-5405