2015 Fanti Brunello di Montalcino DOCG Tuscany 750 ml

We dubbed it Brunello Black Friday because the place was bedlam.

Hundreds of somms and wine buyers bouncing from table to table at the Consorzio del Vino Brunello di Montalcino’s annual Benvenuto Brunello event, looking to check every big-league 2015 off their bucket list. Considering that Vinous called the season “easily one of the top eight or ten Brunello vintages of all time,” these excitable somms were on Cloud Nine. 

Meanwhile, we were on a mission. We passed up the shiny things—the exorbitantly-priced showpiece bottles—for the stellar values that we knew a once-in-a-decade vintage like 2015 would bring. Which brought us to Fanti, a longtime favorite that delivered in a big way: with a 95-pointer that James Suckling calls their best ever.

Today we’ve got Fanti’s high-water Brunello at $45. For a bottle that highlights a sensational vintage and shows off your savvy in every sip, you can’t do any better. 

Pour a glass of Fanti’s fabulous ‘15, and you’ll understand why Vinous says ”industry pros were ready to sound the trumpets, beat the drums and break out the bubbly” over the flawless vintage. The crimson-ruby stunner opens with tons of warm crushed red berries, which meld into savory notes of licorice, dusty red earth, worn leather, resinous herbs, and an iron-rich meaty tone. Full and powerful with a texture that becomes finer and finer with time in the glass, it’s Brunello power and precision in one bargain bottle.

Tenuta Fanti is one of our tried-and-true sources of fantastically priced, high-quality Brunello. The family has deep roots in Montalcino, having owned their property in the celebrated Castelnuovo dell’Abate zone since the early 1800s. The gorgeous property is more than 700 acres, 123 of which comprise Filippo Fanti’s meticulously farmed vineyards. 

South-facing and consisting of sandy and poor soils, Fanti’s vineyard land is ideal for grape cultivation, and Filippo and his daughter Elisa do it the hard way, with manual weed removal and natural fertilizers. As a result, both the old vines and the new plantings of low-yielding modern clones produce impeccably balanced Brunello that always shows beautiful generosity in its youth. And in the blockbuster 2015 season, they’ve outdone themselves with their best showing ever. 

This is a savvy Brunello buyer’s dream—buy with abandon, for the short term and for the cellar.