2018 Brunello di Montalcino

The 2018 Brunello Di Montalcino is just gorgeous, with interwoven layers of Mediterranean herbs evolving in the glass along freshly picked sage, pristine red cherry, graphite, and anise. It is medium-bodied, with a graceful texture, fine tannins, rocky earth, and fresh acidity that threads it together spiraling forward. It is a wonderful effort from Sesti for its pristine nature and transparency, and it offers notes of blood orange, cedar, and cranberry throughout. Drink 2025-2045.

Savory and open in texture, the 2018 Brunello di Montalcino is a wine that is poised for near and medium-term drinking. This vintage shows an accessible side with ripe cherry and dark plum. Those fruit tones cede to toasted spice, sweet earth and dried rose. The effect is rather simple and big-boned thanks to the thicker fruit texture offered here. This is a production of 13,500 bottles.

Hints of fresh mint give way to dried strawberries and cedary spice as the 2018 Brunello di Montalcino blossoms in the glass. This is a soft and graceful effort, with a pretty inner sweetness that complements its notes of ripe cherry and plum. The 2018’s structure comes on full force through the finish, as a primary concentration of fruit recedes to reveal a saturation of fine tannins, leaving only hints of licorice and wild blueberry to linger. While a bit aggressive through the finale, there’s a lot of depth and power here that should allow this to excel through medium-term cellaring.