2017 Brunello di Montalcino Helichrysum
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Tasting notes
The San Polino 2017 Brunello di Montalcino Helichrysum (with 9,000 bottles made) shows slightly lighter fiber compared to the annata release, and this wine is also more floral, with pressed rose, dried lavender and bay leaf. This more compact style is well suited to this hot and dry vintage that naturally produced a lot of sugar (alcohol) and extract. Farming at San Polino is organic and biodynamic.
Critic scores
Average Score
Walter Speller, jancisrobinson.com
Monica Larner, Wine Advocate
More reviews and scores
Lustrous mid ruby. Lifted, sweet cassis and cherry nose. Exotically fragrant perfumed fruit on the palate which builds up on the finish. Striking and certainly unusual and with cracking tannins. Needs time to settle. (WS)
Tart cherries, wild strawberries, sage and lifting hints of mint and camphor waft up from the 2017 Brunello di Montalcino Helichrysum. This is savory and mineral in nature, yet also velvety-smooth, ushering in a mix of red and black berries that slowly build tactile tension toward the close. Rounded tannins linger, as residual acids keep the expression unexpectedly fresh. This could use a short stay in the cellar to flesh out a bit, but the balance here is quite impressive. The Helichrysum hails from San Polino’s highest-elevation parcel, at 450 meters, where the soils are both clay-rich and volcanic in origin. It spends six months with bâtonnage in barriques, followed by three years in Slavonian oak.