#9 on PRIMA's Top 25 Wines of 2025

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Sure, we’re all waiting with bated breath for the much-anticipated 2021 Brunellos to start shipping next year but, in the meantime, what are we going to drink? How about this eight-year-old crazy deal from one of Montalcino’s most venerated addresses? Siro Pacenti, as many of you PRIMA old-timers already know, has been associated with our business since the 1988 vintage when our own Joel Butler MW first convinced Giancarlo Pacenti he could sell his Brunello in California. This was back in the day when selling Brunello in California was no mean feat! These plush, stylish wines immediately struck a chord here and, before you knew it, the Pacenti name was on every Brunello lover’s lips, not only ours. Thanks Joel! Our allocation of Pacenti’s Brunellos usually sell out in a matter of minutes—part of the general frenzy that has surrounded the recent string of great vintages in Tuscany and the passion for Brunello in general.

But Pacenti’s importer is hanging up their spikes and is leaking out what’s left of their Pacenti inventory to its most ardent fans. Like so many delicious Pacenti Vecchie Vigne cuvees in the past, the perfectly drinking 2017 comes from the oldest vines on the estate, and is intensely aromatic, textural and deep, deep, deep. Despite the generous use of luxurious French oak, the wine is still a transparent expression of old-vine Sangiovese from the two separate sites that create the cuvee. All that luscious cherry-inflected fruit covers a core of Montalcino’s iron-y mineral and tannin, and you would be well-advised to give this a good, long decanting if you decide you can’t lay your hands off tonight but, really, it has a long way to go should you decide you want to wait. And, by the way, this weighs in at 15+% alcohol and you’d never guess it. Amazing!

Not too long ago, a customer opened for us a 1988—this was well before Giancarlo had decided to segregate these particular old-vine sites—and it was simply fabulous! Gonna find me a large Porterhouse and, well, you know ... 

Wine Advocate, 94 Points: The Siro Pacenti 2017 Brunello di Montalcino Vecchie Vigne shows an extra degree of concentration and thickness thanks both to the vintage (this hot and dry growing season produced darker, more intense berries) and the older vines that also work toward greater fruit weight. The Vecchie Vigne shows lots of depth and textural weaving with dark berries and oak spice. In fact, the oak (and that big 15% alcohol) is more prominent in this 18,000-bottle release. It offers long-lasting notes of smoke, sweet cedar and woodshop.