At the Ohana Christmas Lunch.

WOW. This was a DAMN good brunello, and came at an absolute surprise for me: I had picked this as a cheaper wine to lower the average cost per bottle for the afternoon, and didn’t really have any expectations for it.

In the glass: this was classic brunello with that garnet color, albeit with a lighter body than usual.

The nose is what fascinates me: this was a cherry and earthy clay. It reminds me of when I used to dig holes in the ground as a kid, through all those cow grass and into the clayish soil. The wine was aromatic from the start, but was a little closed off.

On the palate: high acidity, very grippy tannins (some folks didn’t like that) but that’s to be expected – this is still a very very young Brunello. Its biggest flaw was unfortunately that alcohol… at 14%, this was on the upper range, but it wasn’t very well integrated – it was very distinct on the exhale. Had to dock 0.1 pts off for that.

5 hours in: wow. That nose. It intensified into this sweet dried fruits that I found just absolutely stunning with that earthiness/clay note. Just, it’s damn good. I’m not sure who would ever have the patience to decant this guy, or have the opportunity to taste it over 5 hours (today is an odd anomaly), but this afternoon has been a whole ass masterclass on the wonders of long aeration.

Give this guy maybe another 5 years, and this could be outofwordly. It’s just delicious. What a find.