This afternoon Maria Caterina Dei invited a number of us to a tasting of the only five Bossona Riserva that her family has ever bottled: 1999, 2001, 2004, 2007 and 2009. Their villa just outside the old village of Montepulciano is surrounded by a romantic park with old cypress trees and magnolias. Like numerous other estates in the region, the Dei originally considered this merely their escape for the summer holidays. Only in 1985 did they start making wine. In 1989 they built the first cellar, which has been given a serious facelift and enlarged over the past three years. It was here that the wines were shown.

Caterina's grandfather, Alibrando, bought Bossona in 1964 and planted his first vines on the tufaceous soils of what the family describe as a windblown amphitheatre. Nicolò d'Aflitto oversees the various phases of the vinification process, producing about 20,000 bottles in a good year. My call for the day was the 2001. Its herbal style, tinged with liquorice, is what I imagine excellent Vino Nobile to be. Comments