Brezza, Barolo Sarmassa, 1999

If Cannubi is Brezza's perfume, Sarmassa is its structure. Just across the Barolo village hill, Sarmassa carries more clay and less sand than its famous sibling — the wines come out denser, more muscular, with a longer arc into maturity. Enzo Brezza (trained under his father Oreste and his godfather Bartolo Mascarello) was firmly in command by 1999, and the great classical vintage gave him exactly the raw material his traditional house style is built for: long macerations, big Slavonian botti, no compromises. Twenty-six years on, this is in the heart of its window — the structure now polished, the dark Barolo fruit still very much alive. A serious mature Barolo for a serious table.