Pizzini Rubacuori Sangiovese 2016

You’ve heard of single vineyard wines; prized for their premium soil or location. Having championed Sangiovese for more than 30 years, Pizzini decided to step it up a notch with Rubacuori, a wine made from selection of their best individual vines. Rubacuori translates as ‘heart breaker’ and features one on the label –  matriarch Katrina Pizzini in 1970, a few years before the first vineyards were planted at the Pizzini’s beautiful home in the King Valley.

A wine like this deserves to be decanted but even straight from the bottle it offers an impressive interplay of tar and roses. The fruit is deep and juicy – black cherries and blackberry compote. Savoury complexity comes to the fore with Umeboshi (Japanese salted plums), dried Italian herbs, black truffles and the earthiness of ferrous crushed rocks in the summer sun. With a silky, mouth-filling texture and lashings of complexity you will want to drink it now. However the structured tannins, supple acidity and length for days raise a compelling argument to keep at least a couple of bottles in the cellar. 

Nicole Bilson

Wine Critic at Winepilot

Nicole loves wine. So much so that she gave up a successful career in Pharmacy, perfected her spitting technique, and moved from sunny Queensland to the wine-drenched laneways of Melbourne. Stints in hospitality, wineries, retail, sales and marketing filled the next few years while Nicole built her knowledge and searched for the right path. She completed the Wine and Spirits Education Trust (WSET) Diploma in 2016 and became a certified WSET Educator the following year. She now juggles a number of roles including teaching people about wine, curating wines lists for restaurants and bars, judging in Australian wine shows and, of course, writing. In 2016 she won the Negociants Working With Wine writing award and has since contributed to Gourmet Traveller WINE, Halliday Wine Companion Magazine and Nourish Magazine.

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