Roberto Voerzio Nebbiolo Langhe 2023

Roberto Voerzio’s La Morra holdings are legendary – obsessively farmed, punishingly low-yielding – and what he does with Nebbiolo at every level of his lineup is, frankly, unfair to everyone else in Piemonte. We've gone straight to the source, and for a very short window, his 94-point 2023 Langhe Nebbiolo is yours for $75.95 a bottle, down to just $31 when you grab two or more.

Let's be honest about what "Langhe Nebbiolo" usually means. It's the wine producers make from younger vines or declassified fruit, something to fill the gap between harvests while the real stuff sleeps in barrel. That's not what Roberto Voerzio does. He doesn't really have a mode for "entry level." His Langhe comes from the Disanfrancesco vineyard in La Morra – sitting right alongside Brunate, one of the most celebrated Crus in all of Barolo – farmed with the same high-density plantings and fanatically managed yields he applies to everything he touches. The only meaningful difference between this and his Barolo is this one you can actually open next week.

The 2023 vintage in Piemonte was the kind of season that builds character (both in producers and in wine). Spring rains gave way to summer heat, mildew pressure had everyone nervous, and then, right on cue, the weather shifted. The skies cleared, temperatures steadied, and the grapes finished with the kind of natural acidity and structural poise that makes the vintage genuinely exciting. Voerzio's approach in the cellar kept things precise, with 12 months in a mix of new and used tonnaux and barrels, followed by 8 months in stainless, using only free-run juice to preserve freshness and clarity. The wine ended up earning 94 points – and when you taste it, that number will feel like an understatement.

In the glass, this is Nebbiolo doing what Nebbiolo does best when it's grown somewhere extraordinary, offering up roses, pressed violets, and a thread of rosemary that drifts in and out. Then cherries, ripe plum, a hit of blood orange pith on the finish, and that signature graphite undercurrent that tells you exactly where this grape came from. It builds slowly across the palate, and is deceptively structured, sincerely elegant, and completely at odds with its price tag. At $31 a bottle on a two-pack, this is one of the more absurdly good deals in fantastic Italian wine at the moment. Each time we've offered Voerzio here, it's gone faster than the time before. Consider yourself warned!

FOOD PAIRINGS: Definitely go for Moroccan lamb tagine, with preserved lemon and olives to echo the wine's earthy, almost savory undercurrent without fighting its floral side. It's a pairing that has no business working as well as it does… and that’s the fun of it!