This La Rasina (thanks Robert!) showed slightly hot (probably because of its relative youth versus the dozen-or-so older wines we'd tasted before it). The wine showed all the component parts it needs to have a long life: ripe (or slightly underripe) fruit & balance between fruit, acid, and oak. This wine is big, and at the 9-year-mark in its life it is showing far more oak than the older brunellos we'd tried -- and this type of sine-curve integration of oak and fruit will leave it favoring one or the other while it is maturing. This wine is in an "oak" phase of its maturation. $62; 90+ points

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