Gaja Pieve Santa Restituta Brunello di Montalcino Sugarille 2015

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.

The 2015 Brunello di Montalcino Sugarille is a gorgeous, feminine Brunello. It offers up fresh red berries, woodland in nature, with dusty florals and white smoke, turning more savory in the glass, hinting at coffee grinds, yet understated and refined throughout. On the palate, velvety textures nearly envelope a solid core of structural heft, which are perceived yet hardly felt until the finale. The purest blackberry, licorice, sage and savory spices remain throughout its long and dramatic finish, as grippy tannins emerge beneath a cloak of dark florals and crushed wildberry fruit. The 2015 Sugarille is a little untamed in its early going, but I'm imagining that quite a wine will emerge over the next five to ten years. Drinking Window: 2024-2036.

A darker, more smoky, black-fruited effort than the Rennina, the 2015 Brunello Di Montalcino Sugarille offers up awesome roasted herbs, licorice, graphite, and woodsmoke aromatics, full-bodied richness, silky tannins, and a terrific sense of elegance that comes through with time in the glass. This is another layered, perfectly balanced wine from the team at Gaja that's going to benefit from 2-4 years of bottle age and keep for 15-20 years.

A concentrated, muscular red, featuring a dense matrix of tannins that squeezes the black cherry and black currant flavors today, with tar and iron notes chiming in. Finishes on the gruff side. Overall, this is balanced and long. Be patient. Best from 2024 through 2043. 450 cases imported.