A heavenly sweetie

2006 Vin Santo del Chianti Rufina, Selvapiana, Tuscany, Italy (£35.99, 50cl bottle, Cambridge Wine Merchants, 01223-568989, www.cambridgewine.com; Valvona & Crolla, 0131-556 6066, www.valvonacrolla.co.uk).

I like Vin Santo enormously. It's a guilty pleasure little bottles which cost the earth. However, this famous style of sweet wine from Tuscany varies enormously from manky, seaweedy, treacle-flavoured shockers all of the way up to this wine and my other favourite, Isole e Olena, which offer a unique and often unsurpassed sweet wine experience.

I occasionally open a bottle at dinner parties and sometimes sneakily serve it blind for travelling winemakers (who never get the chance to taste this nectar), but absence definitely makes the heart grow fonder in Vin Santo's case.

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My featured wine is, without doubt, the finest example of this dried grape' sweetie I have tasted in years. Winemaker Federico Giuntini Masseti conjures up heavenly wines.

His Chianti Rufina Riserva Bucerchiale is a phenomenal red often gaining stellar scores in my notes. But this 2006 vintage Vin Santo shot to 19.520 when I tasted it back in January.

After five years maturing in barrels, during which time the wine oxidises down to 20% of its initial yield, I will bet you've never tasted anything as noble or as multi-layered in the sweet wine world.

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year (www.matthewjukes.com).

Matthew Jukes has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006.

He has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website.

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy. His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.