2020 Brunello di Montalcino
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Tasting notes
The 2020 Brunello Di Montalcino Magistra sports a bright brick red color and opens to notes of ripe red cherries, Mediterranean herbs, dried flowers, fresh leather. The palate has a bit of meaty iron richness, with ripe, chewy tannins and a heartier feel, while still remaining fresh and retaining a clean, fruity profile. It's very nicely styled and should continue to offer enjoyment over the next 10-15 years. This winery did well in this vintage, and I like this wine a lot more than the 2019.
Critic scores
Average Score
Jeb Dunnuck
Monica Larner, Wine Advocate
More reviews and scores
Pouring a reflective red color, the 2020 Brunello Di Montalcino has lovely aromatics with a fruitier profile, revealing notes of fresh tobacco, ripe cherries, forested earth, and tangerine. Medium-bodied, it has good structure and retains wonderful freshness and good length, but it never feels hot,.
The Sesta di Sopra 2020 Brunello di Montalcino offers a fresh fruit profile with cherry and plum at the forefront. There is a big fruit component here and an equally large oak component. It ages in 30-hectoliter Slavonian oak casks. The wine sports warm-vintage fruit tannins and oak tannins, and both give the wine a bold and angular profile. Some 4,000 bottles were made.
Tightly coiled in the glass, the 2020 Brunello di Montalcino Magistra is youthfully backward. Dried roses mix with a dusting of exotic spice, orange peel and strawberry aromas, all accentuated by hints of incense. It's texturally deep, pliant and nearly creamy in feel, with a balancing core of tart wild berry fruits and citrus tones that swirl beneath an air of violet inner florals. It leaves the palate reeling with tension, structured and long, with a resonance of licorice and red currants that fade slowly. Despite the warmth of the 2020 vintage, the Magistra comes across as a total classic.