2015 Brunello di Montalcino

Sweet berries and dried flowers with cedar and hints of cigar box. Medium-to full-bodied with firm, creamy tannins and a fresh, vivid finish. A rather linear and polished 2015. Structured. Better after 2022, but already beautiful.

The Sesti 2015 Brunello di Montalcino offers rich texture and shapely fruit flavors with plenty of forest berry, cherry, spice and potting soil. This Brunello opens to a very smooth, almost glossy texture with tannins that have already integrated at the five-year point following the harvest. That aged smoothness and silkiness gives this wine immediate appeal. The oak feels well integrated within the more opulent texture of the fruit. Some 180,100 bottles were released, but only 360 cases were shipped to the United States.

The nose is dark and rich, showing ripe black cherry and sweet herbs, with notes of tobacco, hints of mocha, and brown spice. On the palate, soft textures give way to sweet red fruits, showing wonderful purity and finesse, which was completely unexpected following the powerful bouquet that greeted me, as the 2015 Sesti becomes even more savory in the glass. The finish is long, energetic yet clean, with brisk acids making the mouth water, and remnants of red berry fruit and inner florals echoing throughout. The longer I spend with the glass, the more I like it.