The Umberto Cesari 2012 Sangiovese Tauleto pours from a heavy glass bottle adorned with gold etching. This is a blend of 90% Sangiovese and 10% Uva Longanesi, a little-known indigenous grape found in Emilia Romagna. Compared to the more popular Sangiovese, Uva Longanesi delivers higher pH, alcohol and dry extract. Wines made with this grape tend to show a darker color and more concentrated appearance. In terms of aromas and personality, this wine flaunts its dominant Sangiovese identity with wild cherry and pressed violets. There is some cherry confit or preserved blackberry that comes from the hot and dry vintage. But that mysterious Uva Longanesi comes through thanks to the added weight and the deeper center of gravity that you sense here. The wine is fermented in Slavonian oak casks and later aged in barrique and tonneaux for two years. Some 27,000 bottles were made.

Super extracted and thick, you'd hardly recognize the 2010 Tauleto is 90% Sangiovese (with 10% Uva Longanesi). The wine opens to a dark, blackish color and shows an enormous level of aromatic intensity. You get blackberry jam, exotic spice, cinnamon, vanilla, leather and tobacco. Winemaking and oak use has definitely overpowered any fruit. But this was also a very hot vintage and this edition of Tauleto feels very muscular and brawny as a result.

This is a dark and impenetrable wine with a perfumed bouquet of pressed roses, exotic spice, wild berries and a touch of pipe tobacco. It tastes rich, sweet and chewy in the mouth and ends with a blast of fresh berries and spice.——M.L.(9/1/2009)—— 90

Give this wine a few moments to open and you’ll be greeted by red fruit, roasted chestnut, coffee and vanilla. Made with Sangiovese and the Bursona Longanesi grape and aged in wood for two years, the wine is soft and round in the mouth with sour cherry on the finish. ——M.L.(2/1/2007)—— 88