2016 Stefania Barbot Taurasi Fren
Market price
Buying options
Tasting notes
The 2016 Taurasi Fren keeps you coming back to the glass over and over again with its savory and beguiling bouquet. Dried roses, crushed cherries, plums, rich brown spices, rosemary, scorched earth and stone can all be found. It’s undeniably elegant and velvety in feel, yet energetic, with tart red berries and salty minerals that penetrate deeply, adding grippy traction toward the close. The cheeks pucker with youthful tension, even as a pretty inner sweetness enlivens the expression, leaving notes of bitter currants, salt-cured meats and tobacco to linger on and on. This is refined for twenty-four months in 3000-liter oak casks. For all of its power and structure, I simply can’t help but return to the glass. That said, the 2016 Fren needs time to reveal all of its charms. This is a drop-dead gorgeous wine in the making.
Critic scores
Average Score
Monica Larner, Wine Advocate
Eric Guido, Vinous
More reviews and scores
This is a fantastic wine from Stefania Barbot that represents a spot-on interpretation of both vintage and territory. The 2016 Taurasi Fren is dark and luscious, boasting impressive depth and persistence. There is extreme purity of fruit with blackberry and blackcurrants interwoven into smoke, tar, ash and exotic spice. To the palate, the wine offers structure and ample fruit weight, resulting in a powerful, steak-worthy performance. Fruit comes from 70-year-old vines planted at 470 meters in altitude. Production is 4,000 bottles.