The 2012 Brunello di Montalcino Vigneti del Versante is a brilliant ruby color in the glass, with a deep and rich bouquet that mixes autumnal spice with sweet tobacco and sugar-dusted plums. It’s seamlessly silky, enveloping the palate in opulent strawberry and raspberry fruit that gain a grippy tension as saline-mineral tones saturate. Its tannins have rounded over the last ten years, making for a lightly structured yet completely satisfying and approachable Brunello. A vivid note of hard red candies lingers on. Always humble, Jan Hendrik Erbach admits that he may have had a better experience with a shorter maceration (five weeks in this case), yet he strives to capture as much character from the skins as possible. The 2012 was all refined in a new 40-hectoliter cask. You can feel the warmth of the year, but the balance is on point, aided by pronounced acidity. -- Eric Guido