Cencioni Brunello di Montalcino 2017

Mocha, tobacco and spice aromas lead the way, while the ripe, open palate offers baked plum, espresso and coconut alongside close-grained tannins.

While winemaker Patrizia Cencioni’s family roots reach back decades in Montalcino, this is not your typical tale of wine-stained generations, each planting vines and learning from the next. Patrizia wanted to make Brunello wines; thus, she bought a crumbling property on the southeast flanks of Montalcino in 1989—not far from the lauded Casanova di Neri—and set to doing things her way. Thirty years later, the estate is a shining example of how hard work and dedication can make a modest family farm into a rising star of this world-famous appellation. Sitting on a perfect plateau some 1,050 feet in altitude, it benefits from a particular microclimate that moderates the more Mediterranean heat of this side of Montalcino.