Since so many of you asked about what Pacenti 2020 Brunellos would be available, I’ve put together a modest offer of three new arrivals including the Vecchie Vigne (old vines) cuvee, the bellwether Brunello Pelagrilli and a few precious cases of 2013 Vecchie Vigne, a museum release that just arrived from the winery.  These are coming directly from Pacenti’s new importer and are not gray market as so much Pacenti seems to be these days.  They also beat the tariffs so are priced identically to the 2019s.  Hurray for us!  Siro Pacenti, as many of you PRIMA old-timers will 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 that was no mean feat!  Anyway, these plush, stylish wines immediately struck a chord here and, before you know 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 these are, for the moment, in good supply.

The Pelagrilli cuvee is the winery’s most important wine and comes from the cantina’s estate vineyards located between the Canalicchio and Montosoli districts of northern Montalcino, the sweet spot for Brunello in recent vintages.  It’s a powerful, ripe wine with juicy, spicy fruit and a broad, ultra-complex palate built on plums, cherries, mulberries and loamy earth with hoisin, cinnamon and cloves on a frame that will drink well now but keep indefinitely.  It’s a great Pacenti by any measure.   Like so many delicious Pacenti Vecchie Vigne cuvees in the past, this 2020 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 the 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 it in the near term but, really, find a dark, cool spot at the back of the cellar and let this wonder do its thing.  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- and this was well before Giancarlo had decided to segregate these particular old vine sites- and it was simply fabulous!  And then there’s the 2013 VV.  Every once in a while Giancarlo sends us an easter egg, and to celebrate his new importation arrangement, he has included for us a small amount of this little treasure.  I used the world ‘little’ advisedly, as this is anything but a little wine!  I remember this when it first came out and it was, by any measure, a monster Brunello!  Let’s see what an additional seven years in Pacenti cellar has done to round out its once formidable tannins.  Can’t wait to try this.  Gonna find  me a large Porterhouse and, well, you know.  Very limited- perhaps 24 bottles to share. 

2020 Brunello Pelagrilli Reviews: Suckling 96, Vinous 94+, Wine Advocate 94