Here's a precious and distinctive dessert wine packaged in a slender and tall 250-milliliter bottle with a thick hand-applied yellow wax capsule. Made with air-dried grapes (representing a blend of equal parts Malvasia and Trebbiano Toscano), the Petrolo 2008 Sanpetrolo Passito pours forth with a dark brown color and deep amber hues. The wine is sugary and viscous, with its heavy liquid mass clinging to the inside of your glass. The concentration and richness is outstanding, and it is impossible not to think of all the very hard work employed to make this nectar. The bouquet is redolent of dried fig, maple syrup, chestnut honey and bitter chocolate. This is a work of extremes, and a work of art.

In a league with Italy’s best dessert wines, San Petrolo is a superrich and concentrated wine that almost has a hard time pouring out of the bottle. The wine does indeed have the consistency of maple syrup, with a deep brown color and gorgeous aromas of toasted almond, chestnut honey, creme caramel and creme brulee.——M.L.(12/15/2011)—— 97