Ninety-nine points from Vinous — the highest score this estate has ever received. Fifty-four months in a single cask, plus eighteen months in bottle. Six bottles left.
Deep garnet with the first brick sheen. The nose opens slowly and gains amplitude as it goes: mentholated cherry, autumnal spice and cedar, with dried cherry, blackberry, light spice, tar and smoke beneath, and a floral top layer. On the palate the wine is open-knit and rich, with a polished yet powerful tannic structure and a very long, persistent finish. At fifteen percent alcohol this is the estate's most substantial wine, but the acidity keeps everything in balance. Drinking window well past 2040; already superb after two hours in a decanter. Around 18 degrees, with game or a classical roast.
In Montalcino, grandparents call their granddaughters potazzine, after the small, brightly coloured birds of the Tuscan countryside. That is what their grandmother called Viola and Sofia, the daughters of owner Gigliola Giannetti — and the estate grew in step with them: Viola was born in 1993, the founding year, and when Sofia arrived in 1996 two more hectares took the total to five.
The Riserva has existed only five times: 2004, 2006, 2011, 2015 and 2019. It is made only when the vineyard asks for it, comes from Le Prata — the highest plot, at 507 metres — and matures in a single thirty-hectolitre cask of Slavonian oak.
For the 2015 that meant fifty-four months in wood followed by eighteen in bottle: six years in the cellar before the wine left the estate.
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