2012 Brunello di Montalcino
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Tasting notes
The 2012 Brunello di Montalcino Vigneti del Versante is a brilliant ruby color in the glass, with a deep and rich bouquet that mixes autumnal spice with sweet tobacco and sugar-dusted plums. It’s seamlessly silky, enveloping the palate in opulent strawberry and raspberry fruit that gain a grippy tension as saline-mineral tones saturate. Its tannins have rounded over the last ten years, making for a lightly structured yet completely satisfying and approachable Brunello. A vivid note of hard red candies lingers on. Always humble, Jan Hendrik Erbach admits that he may have had a better experience with a shorter maceration (five weeks in this case), yet he strives to capture as much character from the skins as possible. The 2012 was all refined in a new 40-hectoliter cask. You can feel the warmth of the year, but the balance is on point, aided by pronounced acidity.
Critic scores
Average Score
Monica Larner, Wine Advocate
Eric Guido, Vinous
More reviews and scores
This wine exudes elegant power and linear finesse. The 2012 Brunello di Montalcino Vigneti del Versante has not yet been released. In fact, it will hit the market after the younger 2013 vintage. We should expect to see it in the fall of 2018. The bouquet offers so much care and detailing that all comes together like a massive ceiling fresco in an Italian Renaissance palace. The bouquet allows for a big picture perspective with wild cherry, rose hip, dried ginger, rosemary and spice. The mouthfeel is firm, almost crunchy. Swirl the glass a few times and savory tones of moist earth and exotic tea begin to appear. This is a beautiful wine worth waiting for.