Giuseppe Gorelli Brunello di Montalcino Riserva 2019

Giuseppe Gorelli made his first Brunello in 1986 under his grandfather's label, Due Portine-Gorelli. After the family sold that estate in the late 1990s, he and his wife Gigliola Gianetti, who had worked at Biondi Santi, founded Tenuta Le Potazzine, a tiny organic farm at about 500 metres. The name is Montalcino dialect for a colourful, cheerful bird, the nickname Gigliola's mother gave her two young daughters. Until the 2016 vintage Giuseppe made the wines himself, after working for 15 years alongside the late Giulio Gambelli, one of Italy's great Sangiovese experts, and since then the label has been sold under his own name. The Riserva is made from a selection of 100% Sangiovese from two vineyards: Le Prata at 500 metres facing south-east, and La Torre at about 320 metres facing south-west. It is made entirely traditionally: long ambient fermentations of up to 30 days and ageing in 30–50 hectolitre Slavonian oak casks.

The result is classic, high-toned Brunello. Red cherry, blackberry and violet are joined by Christmas spice, liquorice, cola and camphor, with a dusty, mineral quality, and a gunflint note in the more muscular years. The palate is powerful yet suave, ripe and deep, with dusty tannins and a long, subtly perfumed finish of dried fruits and herbs that Ian D'Agata called classic and slightly austere.