Brunello di Montalcino, Le Potazzine 2016

Le Potazzine always delivers a smooth and silky style with extreme elegance and the lifted cool-climate fruit that you get from this high-altitude growing site. The 2016 Brunello di Montalcino is taut and firm with cherry fruit, dried raspberry, tilled earth, spice and blue flower. The wine sees an extended fermentation of 40 days and ages in botte grande for 42 months. This is a well-balanced wine that is slightly thinner, with one notch lower intensity in this vintage compared to past editions. You get a light, sharp and streamlined style. I prefer the 2015 vintage slightly to this wine, but I'm suggesting a longer drinking window here. This is an 18,000-bottle release that hits the market in January 2021. 2023-2043

This is a cooler style of Brunello with blueberries, black cherries, crushed stones and lavender. It’s full-bodied with firm, tight tannins. Yet, it opens at the end to pinpointed fruit and tannins. Give this time to soften. Try after 2024.

Soft smudgy ruby. Spicy senescent red fruit. Fruity tobacco sweetness. Very dry grippy tannins increased by the acidity – challenging structure at the moment but there's plenty of fruit leaving a long spicy aftertaste. This doesn't shout but it is promising in its embryonic state. 2022-2033