An opulent red with black-cherry and plum aromas and flavors with undertones of orange peel and porcini mushrooms. It’s full-bodied and layered with depth and intensity throughout. Solid and layered. Very structured. Give this at least three to four years of bottle age. Try after 2024.

The Canalicchio di Sopra 2015 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva is a beauty. It offers a brilliant interpretation of a warm and sunny vintage from cool, mineral-rich soils in an area with steep shifts between day and nighttime temperatures. This is one of those special wines in which the vintage characteristics fit the territory with the precision of a jigsaw puzzle. The bouquet is fluid and complex with tart cherry fruit, cola, licorice, aniseed and blue flower. That aniseed comes around a second time. The arrangement and order of those aromas changes with each successive swirl of the glass. This Riserva is fermented in stainless steel and aged in Slavonian oak casks for 36 months. Bottle production is shy of 7,000.

In years it's produced, Canalicchio di Sopra crafts its Riserva from a single vineyard of the estate’s oldest vines. In 2015, it hails from Vigna Vecchia Mercatale, which countered the vintage’s warmth with its north-facing, breezy exposure. Opening slowly, it marries lifted liquorice, dried flowers and baking spice with forest undergrowth and leather. There's plenty of character here with a mouthful of dusty red currants and red cherries. Chewy and vigorous, it really keeps improving in the glass - but I would put it away for a few more years.

The 2015 Canalicchio di Sopra Brunello di Montalcino Riserva is a dark and exotic expression of Sangiovese. It pulls you closer to the glass with an alluring display, showing medicinal cherry, plum, a sweet dusting of cinnamon, clove and finally crushed violets. The textures are like pure silk being slowly draped across your palate, offset by tart red and black fruits, as a complex web of acids, minerals and tannins saturate, clamping down toward the close. Structured and tart, as it should be at this youthful phase, the 2015 is still just an infant, with the potential for over a decade’s worth of positive evolution. This year’s Riserva hails from fruit exclusively from the Vigna Vecchia Mercatale vineyard within the Canalicchio cru, and it spends only two extra months in 2,500-liter Slavonian oak casks prior to bottling. Tasted over the course of two days it got better each time I revisited it.

This red evokes sweet, ripe fruit in the form of plum and cherry, complemented by accents of leather, almond, earth and autumn woods. The fruit is matched to a dense matrix of tannins, while the aftertaste lingers, echoing both fruit and savory elements. Best from 2024 through 2047. — BS