2016 Le Ragnaie Brunello di Montalcino Petroso

Here's a new wine from Le Ragnaie. The 2016 Brunello di Montalcino Petroso is produced in an extremely limited volume, with a mere 600 bottles hitting the market at the start of the new year. With such a limited production, it's a shame more people won't be able to taste this pretty Brunello. The wine shows enormous purity and finesse with forest berry and wild cherry and delicate mineral notes on the silky finish. This wine is an expression of extreme elegance and grace.

The 2016 Brunello di Montalcino Petroso from Le Ragnaie balances rich dark fruits with savory spices, sage and violets to create a captivating display. It’s soft and enveloping yet quite feminine, with a mix of brisk acids and minerals which give way to woodland berries and pretty inner florals. Cool-toned, poised and quite piquant, this takes its time, tapering off to grippy tannins. I advise cellaring this for three to five years before checking in again. This is the first vintage that the Petroso vineyard has been bottled as a Brunello cru, a location that Riccardo Campinoti describes as difficult to obtain a balanced ripening of fruit. In an average year, all of the Petroso fruit would all go into the White Label Brunello; however, in 2016 Riccardo felt that it warranted its own bottling. He therefore bottled only 600 liters from a 2,500-liter cask as Petroso, while using the remaining juice to balance the 2016 Brunello.