Community Tasting Note

• Praxis wrote: 93 points

  February 29, 2024 - Day 1: The appearance is somewhere between a clear medium ruby red and pale orange color with a very thin clear watery meniscus. The nose is still rather muted and ungenerous even after 4 hours decanting. But with few vigorous swirls in the glass momentarily reveals lively and deceptively sweet smelling red fruits, a fresh floral lift, old leather, raw meat with some gaminess, lots of brambly overtones and very little oak. The palate is on the lower end of full-bodied, round yet powerful, slightly bitter though not as much as I was expecting from this Italian varietal, understandably tannic though not unrelenting considering its relative youthful age, very well-structure, and balanced enough in my book despite the high 14.5% ABV. The flavor profile is quite interesting. Though many years off from being fully expressive at this juncture, it does show impressive array of flavors albeit short-lived including savory yet dry red fruits, mild tobacco, a certain herbaceous note reminiscent of a wet temperate deciduous forest in the fall season, worn leather, wet animal fur, mild cedar, faint oak and some diluted minerality all wrapped up in a beautiful multi-sensorial experience that continue to linger on effortlessly through its moderate long and warm finish. Paired very nicely with a few slivers of Pecorino Romano. In short, this BdM is still tight and very young. Will see how this turn out tomorrow. For now, I concur with many other CT tasters opinion that this is a very well-made wine from a great vintage that’s still very youthful with lots of potential and plenty of upside in the years to come. Day 2: The nose has opened up and became more generous. Likewise, the palate seemed to have gotten a fuller and more assertive with the fruit core coming to its own while the fine-grain tannins continues to make its presence felt. The emergence of the fleeting flash of tobacco-inflected minerality towards the finish is new and welcomed feature in to today’s tasting. Day 3: Much more integrated with everything pretty much open and ready to go. This final day’s tasting was the best among the three and hopefully an indication of good things to come.
  
  Since 2012, I’ve started a personal tradition of opening and tasting a particular wine over a few successive Leap Year Days (2012, 2016 and 2020). The wine I had the last time was the Parker Coonawarra Estate Terra Rossa First Growth Cabernet Sauvignon 2004. This time around, I chose this Brunello di Montalcino to be my new Leap Year Day wine. Hopefully, I plan to taste this wine again over the next 3 Leap Years (that's 2028, 2032, and 2036) to track its evolution and development. So check back in 4 years for my next update on this wine.

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