A late release Super Tuscan blend, the 2011 Tuttorosso is predominantly Sangiovese yet incorporates 17% Cabernet Sauvignon and 14% Syrah. Aged 22 months in 20% new French oak, it has lots of cherry fruits, dried herbs, spicy oak and licorice in a medium to full-bodied, elegant, balanced style. Drink it over the coming 6-7 years.

Carter’s Italian-styled effort is the 2010 Tuttorosso, which is made from 67% Sangiovese, 23% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Syrah. Spending 22 months in 20% new French and European oak, it’s a medium-bodied, clean and well-balanced effort that offers complex plum, spice, cedar and dried herbs on the nose. Showing plenty of tannin, it should be better in another year or two and have over a decade of ultimate longevity. Brian Carter continues to produce a number of well-made wines, from just about every grape variety out there. Tel. (425) 806-9463; www.briancartercellars.com

Starting off the reds, the 2009 Tuttorosso is Brian’s take on a super Tuscan. Made from 68% Sangiovese, 22% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Syrah and aged for 22 months in French and European oak, it offers spice and vanilla-tinged bouquet of black cherries, cedar and smoke to go with a medium to full-bodied, supple palate. Up-front and ready to go, with a soft, easy texture, it should be enjoyed over the coming 5-6 years or so. Drink now-2019. Based in Woodinville and made by Brian Carter, this is a solid, well-made lineup of wines. Tel. (425) 806-9463; www.briancartercellars.com

Also recommended, but no tasting note given. Oregon- and California-trained Brian Carter has been a prominent fixture of the Washington wine landscape for more than three decades, for much of which he was winemaker for and partner in Washington Hills Cellars (including its Apex and Bridgman brands) and for all of which he has been active as a consultant and ambassador “abroad” (in which capacities I have myself known him for nearly 20 years). Carter has been vinifying and bottling wine under his own name since 1997 (the 2007 Solesce reviewed in this issue thus marking the beginning of that signature cuvee’s second decade). Sweet fruit and toasty oak (despite generally modest percentages of new wood) but also frequently herbaceous, gum-numbing and bitter notes characterize the reds that dominate Carter’s production – most of them fancifully named in a nod to their Old World inspirations – from which I would love to experience a bit greater sense of clarity, levity, energy, and retention of primary fresh fruit juiciness. “It’s taken me a while to unlearn Davis training,” Carter told me at one point with a laugh. “They made me swear never to engage in spontaneous fermentation” but recently he’s done just that. So his being viewed as an elder statesman clearly isn’t going to preclude Carter’s continuing evolution as a winemaker. Tel. (425) 806-9463