2018 Brunello di Montalcino, Poggio di Sotto, Tuscany, Italy

Lustrous ruby. Savoury and with hints of raw meat, and still quite embryonic and reductive. Needs lots of aeration to show gorgeous raspberry hints. On the palate, lush fruit with long, polished, yet chewy tannins. Perfumed, sweet raspberry fruit follows through the finish. You get all of this, but only if you open the bottle literally hours earlier.

The 2018 Brunello di Montalcino captivates, opening slowly with an exotic array of sweet spices, cedar shavings, ashen stone, mint and hints of sage. It’s luxuriously soft in texture, silky and refined, with depths of balsamic-tinged cherries accelerated by vibrant acidity and a hint of sour citrus that adds contrast. 

This finishes with impressive structure for the vintage, still lively yet classically dry, leaving nuances of tart berries offset by a burst of inner sweetness that punctuates quite well. This was a very difficult vintage with a massive amount of rain in August that made vineyard work very difficult, but also extremely important. 

That said, the team at Poggio did a fantastic job finding balance. Do make sure to give the 2018 a good amount of time, as I followed this for three days, through which it only got better and better.