Villamanda 2016

Made by the team at Negly, the impressive 2016 Languedoc Villamanda is a blend of Syrah and Grenache that spent two years in oak. Scents of blueberries and cherries converge on the nose, joined by notes of vanilla and baking spices, plus hints of licorice and cracked pepper. It's a big, full-bodied wine but one whose tannins are impeccably ripe and unobtrusive. They give breadth and texture to the wine without constraining it, resulting in a plush, velvety flow across the palate and into the long, supple finish. Sadly, there are only 100 cases of this super wine for the world.

The flagship cuvée, the 2017 Languedoc is a more modern style cuvée based on Syrah, Grenache, and Carignan. Seeing an extended maceration and two years in French oak (plenty new, I’m sure), its dense purple color is followed by a rich, powerful, full-bodied Languedoc offering impressive cassis and blackberry fruits interwoven with high class leather, spice, vanilla bean, and tobacco. It’s beautifully complex, has some background oak, silky tannins, and is a gorgeous wine any way you look at it. It’s going to benefit from a year or two in bottle and will evolve for over a decade.