2015 PS Brunello di Montalcino Riserva Siro Pacenti

Parker - Monica Larner 95, 2025 - 2050, Having tasted this wine in a preview capacity a few years back, it's exciting to compare my past impressions to the current ones. In the case of the Siro Pacenti 2015 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva PS, I found that the oak signature was very strong back then and that it remains very strong, even too strong today. There's beauty here, no doubt, but the stylistic preference for 100% new oak on Sangiovese is forever controversial and debatable. I find that it no longer jibes with my palate, although from an intellectual point of view it's impossible not to recognize the craftsmanship. The aging protocol is set forth by a gradually increasing grain and toast regimen with custom barrels ordered from tonnellerie Taransaud. The wine is aged in new oak for two years and racked every three months for the first year of aging. Detail-oriented farming translates into an impressive 600 to 700 hours of manual work per hectare. The wine's appearance is almost impenetrable, and the bouquet is well-integrated with black fruit, spice and balsam notes, but those tannins are just too much. This wine was not produced in 2013 or 2014, and this 2015 release counts 1,000 bottles and 200 magnums. In 2013, all the fruit went to the Brunello Vecchie Vigne instead. My big-picture takeaway is that I'd like to see more Sangiovese purity, but hats off to the impeccable winemaking.

Falstaff 97, brilliant, rich ruby. Opens with notes of smoke, then lots of dark fruit, wild raspberry and blackberry, a little liquorice in the background. Rich and full-bodied in the beginning and the end, presents itself with powerful tannins, powerful depth, firm pressure in the finish, can be stored for a long time.