2018 Castello di Fonterutoli Siepi

The Mazzei 2018 Siepi is extremely linear and focused, with a pretty mineral signature that makes a nice segue to red and purple fruit, spice and blue flower. Francesco and Filippo Mazzei tell me that they consider this one of their most "gastronomic" or food-friendly vintages of Siepi, a celebrated blend of equal parts Merlot and Sangiovese. These two grapes complement each other beautifully, with the French grape adding dimension and depth and the Italian grape showing a lifted or buoyant quality to the bouquet. This was a healthy production of an ample 38,000 bottles released. It could pair with a classic Tuscan dish of pappardelle in a slowly simmered wild boar sauce.

Full bottle 1,503 g. Alcohol: 14.53%. Total acidity: 5.9 g/l. Large crop produced by a fairly classic growing season preceded by useful precipitation. Tuscans were happy with this vintage. Harvest: hand-picked starting from 12 September (Merlot), 22 September (Sangiovese). Fermentation temperature: 26–28 °C. Period of maceration: 14 days (Merlot), 18 days (Sangiovese). Ageing: 18 months in small French oak barriques (Merlot) and tonneaux (Sangiovese), both 70% new, before four months in concrete tanks. Bottling: June 2020. Production: all of 38,000 bottles. Mid crimson – not that dense. Rather voluptuous with an undertow of richness. Merlot slightly trumps Sangiovese in this vintage (whereas Sangiovese tang seemed to dominate the 2017). Thicker and sweeter than the 2017 with just a little hint of oak still. (JR)

Siepi, Fonterutoli’s Merlot/Sangiovese blend, is absolutely gorgeous in 2018. Rich, pliant and creamy, Siepi offers all of the seductiveness of Merlot with the bright acids and grip of Sangiovese. Inky blue/purplish fruit, lavender, dried herbs, spice, licorice and new leather meld together in an open-knit, inviting Tuscan red with no hard edges and tons of allure shaped by alberese soils with a good bit of clay. The 2018 is an undeniably sexy wine with so much immediacy.