Bazzini Barbera

Grape: Nebbiolo

Region: Piedmont, Italy

Vintage: 2006

Price: $7.99

In the glass: Bazzini Barbera is a deep semiopaque purplish-red color with bright crimson streaks going out into a clean pinkish-red rim definition with medium viscosity.

On the nose: There are bright red fruit characteristics with dominance by crushed red cherries, rhubarb coulis, red currants, crushed elderberry fruit, faint oak references, vanilla beanstalk, cranberry juice and minerals.

On the palate: The wine features bright red fruit with cherries, red plums, currants and cranberry butter. It shows medium body weight and good balance between fruit, acidity and tannins. Through the midpalate the wine softens with yet more red fruit and then goes into a pleasant supple finish that lingers with cranberry juice and cherries on the end. Bazzini Barbera is bright, juicy and supple throughout.

Odds and ends: While nebbiolo also is used to make the famous barolo and barbaresco wines, Bazzini Barbera is a great lighter style of wine from Italy’s noble region of Piedmont. It is an extra value with 33 percent more wine than in a regular bottle. It should drink well through 2010, and needs to be opened at least one hour before consumption. Try this wine with a hearty pizza or angel-hair pasta with marinara sauce.

Gil Lempert-Schwarz’s wine column appears Wednesdays. Write him at P.O. Box 50749, Henderson, NV 89016-0749, or e-mail him at gil@winevegas.com.