2019 Cortonesi Brunello di Montalcino La Mannella

The Cortonesi 2019 Brunello di Montalcino La Mannella is broader and richer and showing more dark fruit and less mineral compared to the Poggiarelli. This wine offers a jammy berry quality with sweet raspberry and wild strawberry. There is mild tobacco with clean earth and a hint of something balsamic like rosemary sprig. The mouthfeel shows fine but drying tannins that you feel far after the fruit has faded from the palate. La Mannella is a more horizontal and fleshed-out wine compared to its sibling.

The 2019 Brunello di Montalcino La Mannella is simply stunning, enticing with a whiff of cooling smoke that gives way to mentholated herbs, blackberries and blood orange. It caresses the palate with silken textures as a polished wave of ripe red and black fruits slowly saturates the senses, leaving a coating of fine tannins in its wake. La Mannella tapers off long and structured, with a licorice tinge, as minty herbal tones add lift, and residual acidity keeps the mouth watering for more. The balance within is spell-binding, yet even so, the 2019 will require patience to come fully into focus.

Lustrous ruby with orange tinges. Compact and still a little closed on the nose with the faintest hint of oak. With aeration stony notes emerge. Same embryonic impression on the palate with a thick layer of fantastic, gravelly tannins. Finely balanced and right now with a gripping structure – but this needs more time. It will be worth the wait. (WS)