Medium ruby right out to a bright pink rim, very staining and not a speck of brick. Plush perfume, chubby and round at first–almost preposterous–gradually opening to broad vanilla, green cherry, and sweet vegetal funk. The 24 month barrique and 36 mo bottle-age are really showing here: there’s a decadence to the bouquet that nearly defies description. NEVER have you smelled Sangiovese like this. Sharp recoils of acid pierce the nose, greening up the fat berry, and dividing the barnyard into manageable terms.
In the mouth, NOT as plush as you expected. Ridiculously streamlined, in fact. Borderlining on austere. The cherry is pie-tart and granular. The fat berry green and pointed. The oak a smoky haze of bitter bluster. The rise & fall of acid is timed perfectly with a mineral infusion, beginning tartarate-sharp and ending mired in clay, at which point the ripe fruit chimes in again, carrying the middle with enthusiasm. Curvy and drop-dead gorgeous in the finish, it slowly fades into something which needs even more polish and has another decade EASY to go before prime.
This is a wine with a myriad of bits driving toward one goal: A perfectly balanced, age-worthy Sangio-dominant IGT. I have tasted (I feel like) ALL of this producer’s numerous meanderings around the Sangiovese grape and this wine is my absolute favorite. A stupidly-beautiful wine which has compound reasoning built into it. If you can only get ONE wine from this winery, try to get this one. I mean–get them ALL, but set aside a couple bottles of this for yourself. Buy 2 cases and drink one per year. I want to taste this in 20 years. And yes, this is easily available in the US.
2014 POGGIO LA NOCE ‘Paonazzo’ Sangiovese/Colorino 50/50 IGT Toscano 14.0
Stephen McConnell 