Amid the current crop of new Tuscan vintages, top billing must go to the 2016 Brunellos – which are surely some of this year’s most hotly-anticipated releases.
Whilst the 2016 wines are remarkable, ranking among or even surpassing many of the greats that have gone before them, the beginning of the season was anything but… Winter was wet and early Spring unseasonably cool. A mini drought followed in April, only for rains to return persistently throughout May and June, accompanied by relatively cool weather. July to September followed a more regular pattern, the summer was sunny, warm and dry though never too hot. This evenness, the lack of extremes, was precisely what made the vintage. The vines were never under any stress. The warm summer had sped up ripening and anticipated harvest to the first two weeks of September. Picking stopped for a mid-month rain storm and then resumed on the 20th September. Depending on vine age or location growers either picked before the rains or afterwards, when the conditions were fine, dry and afforded them the chance to wait for grapes to ripen and concentrate. In either case brilliant wines resulted. The beauty of 2016 is its freshness, classical taut structure and toned power. Intense but fine wines that also have a more vivid vineyard transparency than ever before – a particularly notable trait in a day and age where Brunello offers a more diverse and high quality range of single site expressions than ever before. This is a must for Sangiovese lovers - a vintage to cellar, a vintage to own.
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The wines are currently abroad and will not be shipped until the end of 2021.