2015 Gaja Pieve Santa Restituta Brunello di Montalcino Sugarille

Lustrous mid ruby and still youthful-looking. Savoury, complex oak hints woven into concentrated cherry fruit. Succulent, concentrated cherry fruit with an enticing layer of gravelly tannins. Very long and focused. (WS)

The 2015 Brunello Di Montalcino Sugarille pours a dark ruby hue with less transparency and delivers ripe aromas of black cherry, balsamic, leather, and cedar. Its attractive with its perfume ifs followed by a full-bodied (but not heavy) red with a ripe, full tannin structure and notes of dark mineral earth, blackberry, plum, pine sap, and scorched earth. It is drinking well but still has another 20 years or so ahead of it. Drink 2023-2043.

The more muscular and fruit-forward of the two Brunelli made by Pieve Santa Restituta is the 2015 Brunello di Montalcino Sugarille. This is a darkly saturated and rich wine that pours from the bottle with dark fruit, plum and black currant. Velvety in texture, tactile and generous, this is a long-term wine to set aside in your cellar. Only 6,000 bottles were made. You'll want to give it time to relax and take on more volume with age. Truth be told, like the Barbaresco wines from Gaja that have changed stylistically going from a more extracted style to a streamlined approach, these two wines from the family's Montalcino property seem to have evolved along similar lines. Sugarille has gone from being more flashy and contemporary to understated and classic in this newest incarnation.