(100% merlot; 41 g/l dry extract): Deep black-ruby. Knockout nose combines cassis, blueberry jelly, licorice, coffee and sweet Oriental spices. Dense, suave and refined, with deep, multilayered flavors of cassis, black cherry, licorice, cocoa and tobacco. Finishes long and very smooth, with compelling sweetness and repeating notes of Oriental spices and black cherry. Long-time IWC readers knowI am rarely a fan of voluptuous wines that lose precision and sense of place in favor of creaminess and sheer size, but owner Stefano Frascolla manages to imbue each of his wines with a recognizable somewhereness, not to mention varietal accuracy. And this set of 2009s has a discernible measure of grace and refinement that, for example, the much vaunted 2000s, though outstanding, did not have. A very great Redigaffi, in its own inimitable style. 95+ (ID)