A weird bit of latex-y bottle-funk pent up on opening… Quickly blows of into… musty nothingness. Rather bricking garnet in the glass, more flabby vagueness enveloping everything. So tired, so vapid… I keep looking for greatness I am somehow too ignorant to recognize but have to go pure honest here: There is nothing. Deep moldy cherry and rotting vegetal and beyond that? Nothing. Decanted heartily.

But let’s taste it! Surely there is beauty encapsulated! A brash set of acidity–normally a welcome factor–clashes with the distilled berry, nothing bright, nothing glorious, nothing even resembling quality. Bitter while cloying, either severly heat-damaged or beyond redemption from the get-go. I sway towards the latter.

Sangiovese is not a difficult variety to make delicious wines from. Don’t tell supermarket Chianti this, as hordes continue to somehow convince themselves they must endure millions of bottles of big-house *blah*. And here we have stepped up to Brunello, and nothing has changed. The moldy dust of the bouquet follows through onto the palate, going bland and worthless where one would expect a semblance of fruit or complexity. Distinctly unpleasant in finish: a garish brick wall of stupidity existing where glorious structure *should* be. Taken with mediocre spaghetti & meatballs, I *suppose* one could envision greatness but no amount of convincing will make this wine drinkable for me. This wine is the poster-child why the vast majority of American consumers eschew Italian wines–unless they’re Merlot.

2017 CORTONESI ‘La Mannella’ Brunello di Montalcino Siena Italy 14.5

www.cortonesimontalcino.it/