Bright, thin garnet with wide amber edges.  Tarry, dried spicy fruit under a fat layer of fresh-baked bread and raw beef.  Cut grass and alcohol.  With air, the cinnamon-nutmeg quotient expands drastically alongside some typical Euro cellar-funk.  In the mouth, full and round, boggling the mind with concentration far outside of its color-range.  Like when you taste a really thin-colored Pinot, packed with fruit and nuance.  I’m sorry, but I am from California.  Like so many other New World consumers, I have been drinking big, dark, staining, black, red wines for decades years and when they are thin, you think, OK, this one is going to be a little thin!  But not here.  This thing explodes right out of the gate, filling the mouth with disgustingly ripe fruit slathered with acid and dripping tannin all over the place.  The gravel minerality grinds hard at the edges, pulling everything towards a central core of black cherry impossible to ignore.  Classic, bitingly round, bitter and beautiful.  This is a stellar bottle of wine.  2009 Poggio dell’Otto Brunello di Montalcino DOCG  14-0   ♦♦