Poggio di Sotto, Brunello di Montalcino, Riserva 2019

This excellent wine is slated to be released in January 2025. The Poggio di Sotto 2019 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva shows a point of brilliant fruit over a medium-plus texture. The wine exhibits dusty tannins from the galestro-rich schistic soils that have a huge impact on the elegance and complexity of this exceptional and cellar-worthy Sangiovese. The palate salivates when you taste this wine. The bouquet is refined and bright with floral tones, red fruit and pencil shaving. Everything is in perfect form and balance. The 2019 vintage has the power and muscle for a long bottle evolution.

Focused and perfumed, showing violet, dark-cherry, orange-peel and crushed-stone character. Medium-bodied, this has firm and refined tannins that caress the palate. It’s silky and very long, showing precision and finesse with structure. From organically grown grapes. Best after 2026 but will age for a very long time with confidence.

The bright ruby red 2019 Brunello Di Montalcino Riserva takes time to open in the glass before revealing notes of wet stone, petrichor, ripe cherries, sappy earth, and fresh sage. Medium-bodied, it's fantastically balanced, with a richness of texture that's also never heavy. It offers ripe, well-defined tannins and a long, harmonious finish, with its darker mineral profile coming through. It's going to need time as well. Drink 2028-2050.

Selected after multiple blind tastings, Poggio di Sotto’s Riserva represents a single cask distinguished by its deeper colour, youthful countenance, and – according to winemaker Leonardo Berti – the emotion it evokes. A brooding mass, the 2019 wafts furtively with gingerbread, juniper and cloves. Zesty citrus provides a countering snap. Full and still compacted, it charges the mouth with steely yet elegantly sculpted tannins and brisk acidity. Pure, dark berry fruit is lying in wait to flesh out the structure. A masterpiece of proportionality. Tuck away in the cellar.

Smooth melted tannins, tobacco, truffle, cedar, sandalwood, very smooth, plenty of fresh acidity on the palate, giving plenty of Brunello signature. Starts off savoury but ends with a sweet ripe kiss on the finish. Elegant but with body, depth but weightless, very good. This is the high end, and from one of the founders of the DOC.

The 2019 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva is just an infant in its evolution. A bouquet of dusty earth, dried rose and worn leather give way to wild strawberries, shavings of blood orange and lifting hints of pine. Its silken textures wash across the palate, soothing and seamless, with a wave of ripe plums and cherries guided by a stream of cooling acidity as nuances of brown spice amass toward the close. The 2019 tapers off with a spicy, citrus concentration that swirls beneath an air of violet inner florals and lavender tones as a coating of sweet tannins reminds the taster that this is nowhere near ready to reveal all of its hidden charms.