This red has everything-ripe cherry, blackberry and plum fruit, leather, autumn wood, licorice and mineral flavors as well as fine structure and intensity-and all in the right proportions. Bright, balanced and long, with a chalky sensation around the gums from the well-integrated tannins. Best from 2025 through 2045. 650 cases made, 25 cases imported.

The Fanti 2016 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva Vigna Le Macchiarelle shows additional fruit weight and concentration. This underlines the wine's identity as a Riserva (which sees an additional year of aging before its commercial release). Along with that textural richness, blackberry and dried plum, the wine offers layers of spice, smoke and tar (and a powerful 15% alcohol). Production is limited to 6,000 bottles.

A smoky mix of black currants, plums and ashen stone is lifted by mentholated herbs and pine shavings as the 2016 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva Vigna Le Macchiarelle unfolds in the glass. This is rich and fleshy in feel, with velvety textures carrying dense waves of ripe red and black fruits that give way to mocha and tobacco. For all of its sheer volume and weight, balance is expertly maintained within and throughout the finale, where fine tannins penetrate deeply, contrasted by lasting notes of plum, baker's chocolate and dark inner florals. My tastes tend to veer toward the Brunellos and not the Riserva at this address, as this is such a large-scale and powerful wine. That said, it is very well constructed and balanced for extended cellaring.