2009 Agricola Punica "Barrua" Isola dei Nuraghi (Elsewhere $50)

The Agricola Punica "Barrua" is a wine built to impress. The über-modern nose is full of blackberry, ripe plum, smoke, crushed rock, desert scrub, thyme and a fair dollop of new wood. In fact, given this wine blind, my first impression from the nose might be that it’s a full-throttle South African Cabernet Sauvignon. But on closer inspection, the inherent “Italianess” starts to peek through, with sweet red cherry from the Carignano, some rustic earthiness, and that certain selvatica quality I get from all the best Sardenian reds. And although the nose suggests the wine will be heavy and thick, it’s actually quite elegant and lithe on the palate, with soft tannins, a juicy mid-palate and pleasing finish. The press has for some reason not gotten a hold of this wine, but I can’t imagine it earning anything less than 93 or 94 points from all the major publications. And although the wine was quite pleasant when I first popped it, it was even better when I re-tasted it a few hours later, so decant for an hour or so if you can.