La Palazzetta, Riserva, Brunello di Montalcino 2016 (14.5%)

£70 Villa Sofia Wines

Brunello’s riserva category is sometimes called into question in the region – is it, given the long ageing requirements for ‘ordinary’ Brunello, really needed? Riserva certainly showed its worth in this year’s DWWA, where the normale versions mainly hailed from the difficult 2017 vintage. The 2016 vintage was always going to provide wonderful riserva wines while we wait for their younger siblings, and this darkly translucent example, fragrant with refined red fruits, provides seductive proof. It is settled and softly articulated on the palate, long and quietly pulsing with transmuted red fruits, summer forest warmth and the visceral allure of game, illuminated with the glowing acidity of 2016. The tannins melt away as you hold the wine in your mouth.

Now home to 20ha of vineyards and more than 2,500 olive trees, La Palazzetta was, until 1984, a cheese-producing farm populated by cows, sheep and rabbits. After inheriting the property, the husband and wife pairing of Flavio and Carla Fanti decided to dedicate themselves to producing olive oil and wine (albeit with just the one hectare of Sangiovese), a cause that has now been taken up by their children Luca and Tea, who have focused on – or as winemaker Luca says, ‘turned the light on’ – organic and eco-sustainable winemaking, including preventing disease via seaweed and the juice of oranges.

‘This wine comes from our oldest vineyard, which is 40 years old,’ says Luca. ‘It’s detrital rock that’s rich in minerals and iron. As it’s low in porosity and grey to white in colour, it allows almost all sunlight received to be reflected, thus allowing the clusters better phenolic maturation and, most importantly, resulting in very fine and elegant wines with marked longevity.’

Produced only in the finest vintages, La Palazzetta’s riserva is harvested by hand and fermented with indigenous yeasts before spending five years ageing in French oak casks.