2015 Ciacci Piccolomini d'Aragona Brunello di Montalcino Pianrosso 750 ml

The 2015 Brunellos are arriving stateside, and one of our favorite Brunello values, the Ciacci Piccolomini d’Aragona Pianrosso, has wasted no time standing out: This is a 100-point crimson superstar from Tuscany’s “fairytale” vintage. 

The Pianrosso is a single-vineyard bottling made only in outstanding vintages, and it is treated like a Riserva, spending three years in oak and another three in bottle. The result is a seductive and spiced, open-knit Brunello that is ready to go with a good decant, or will thrive in the cellar for five years or more. We’re extremely glad to have claimed some. You will be too.

Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate praised the Pianrosso as a Brunello that “makes a big impact,” and we couldn’t agree more. After discovering this wine in Florence—where it outperformed its peers on our dinner table long before the critics had their say—we secured our allocation for Wine Access members immediately. Here’s how it happened: 

Last fall, we got a sweet offer from a hotelier friend in Florence: He’d comp us a room at his property—an 19th-century albergo di lusso that the Wine Access accounting department would never sign off on—if we’d act as guinea pigs and help his staff prepare for their busy holiday season. Who would say no? So for three nights in November, we had the dining room practically to ourselves—which meant unlimited consults with a fantastic sommelier named Viviana.

We were eager to drink some young Brunello from the 97-point 2015 vintage. Viviana, who was expecting a stampede of posh guests, had just updated her list with a raft of gems: Biondi-Santi, Poggio di Sotto, La Poderina Riserva, Casanova di Neri Cerretalto—she had them all. So we put ourselves in her hands.

Of all her options, which 2015 showpiece did Viviana choose for us? The 2015 Ciacci Piccolomini d'Aragona Pianrosso, which she immediately decanted, thinking of the rare two-kilo t-bone that would hit our table in an hour. Selected from a single vineyard and aged six years like a Riserva, the Pianrosso is a seductive, open-knit Brunello showing tons of dark cherry, and just enough Slovenian oak spice to season the generous fruit.

When a historic vintage like 2015 comes along, Viviana and other native somms are keen on keeping all the Brunello they can at home—so she was elated that we got to drink the Pianrosso on her turf, and not shy about expressing her hope that we’d strike out on an allocation. In other words, we are fortunate that the 2015 Pianrosso escaped Italian shores, and Wine Access members should be thrilled that a tiny allocation came our way. You’ll be glad you stashed a few in your cellar.  

When the Ciacci and Piccolomini families were joined by marriage in the late 19th century, the union created one of the jewels of Montalcino: A sprawling estate that sits in close proximity to the medieval village of Castelnuovo dell'Abate and the 11th-century Romanesque Abbey of Sant'Antimo. A portion of the 500-acre property is even located in the Val d'Orcia Park, a Unesco World Heritage site. 

The property’s distinguished history includes a populist twist. In 1985, when Countess Elda Ciacci Piccolomini d’Aragona passed away, she left the entire estate—which had been in her family for a century—to her estate manager, Giuseppe Bianchini, who had proven extremely competent and caring during his thirteen-year tenure. Giuseppe took over as proprietor, and for the next twenty years, he planted vines in earnest, and dedicated himself to elevating the estate’s wines. 

Giuseppe passed that ambition directly to his son Paolo, who in 2004 quit a promising professional cycling career in order to take over at Ciacci Piccolomini d’Aragona. It didn’t take long for him to assert himself: He placed a 2007 Brunello at #9 on Wine Spectator’s Top 100 Wines of the Year, and one of his 2012s was named one of the top 50 wines in the world by influential Italian magazine Gazzetta dello Sport. Today, the 2015 is James Sucklings’ #10 wine of Italy for 2019. We can’t wait to see what happens next, with glasses of this perfect 100-point superstar in hand.