Marchesi Antinori Pian delle Vigne Brunello di Montalcino 2014

€48, exclusively represented by S. Rausi Trading Ltd

Antinori’s Pian delle Vigne 2014 is soft berried and stoned red fruit, vanilla bean and dry leaves on the nose. The entry is a medley of red cherries and currants with a mid palate soft fuzziness drifting into a thirst quenching cool waters finish. Tart but sweet acids add an element of effusive restraint helped by the yellow clays, touch of gravel flintiness, and iron fillings from the limestone soils. The shape of the wine and baked spice aromatics also call to mind some deeper soils with their fair share of silts. Upon breathing, a more prolonged finish with stronger cherry and forest fruit flavours; coffee grind, fennel or anise and tobacco also make their mark.

2014 was a wet but mild year with rains throughout the growing and harvesting season with delayed ripening graced by an Indian summer reprieve in September that saved the vintage, creating wines with good acidity, bright fruit and soft classical tannins. This sports these characteristics quite earnestly but the sherry like textures with sweet overtones suggest that despite this being a cool year the south-western sunny exposure and light coloured sun reflective soils give this wine a ripening advantage even if overall this feels quite autumnal.

The Pian delle Vigne Antinori estate lies 6km south west of Montalcino with clay, limestone, sand and fine gravel soils and forms part of the same family of wines sharing its geography, such as Frescobaldi’s Castelgiocondo and Tenuta Luce, known for their primary flavours and textural exuberance of deeper soils with good aromatics from the sands and gravels more generously open in their youth due to a warmer micro climate and softer clays, yet still retaining a modicum of finesse in the tannic profile and shape of the wine which advantageously ripen faster than the rest of the DOCG, a sunny edge in cooler vintages.

Supplier details: S. Rausi Trading has the full portfolio of Marchesi Antinori Wines.

S Rausi Trading Ltd, Empire Stadium Str, Gzira. Tel 00356 2131 6210. Web srausi.com/shop