Brunello 2015: The fairy tale continues

Last year the wines from Brunello di Montalcino’s 2015 vintage stole the limelight at JamesSuckling.com, with our tastings of 180 wines producing some of the best bottles we’ve ever encountered. Many winemakers produced their best ever wine, and the top two spots of our Top 100 Wines of 2019 were both occupied by Brunello 2015 wines. A third wine also made it into the top 10.

Read last year’s Brunello 2015 report by James Suckling here. 

So we approached the tastings of this year’s Brunello 2015 wines enthusiastically, but also curiously: could that elevated quality be continued by other wines this year too?

The quick answer: yes, absolutely. It is clear that the 2015 Brunello vintage is one for the record books, with the kind of structure, mouth-watering fruits and tannin characteristics that suggest these could be some of the most cellarable wines from Italy, or any region, for many years to come.

We now have 219 Brunello 2015 tasting notes in our database, and 11 score a perfect 100 points. As well as our Wine of the Year 2019, the Siro Pacenti Brunello di Montalcino Vecchie Vigne 2015 (100 points), second-placed Renieri Brunello di Montalcino 2015 (100 points), and top 10 placer Eredi Fuligni Brunello di Montalcino 2015 (100 points), producers such as Ciacci Piccolomini, Eredi Fuligni, Giodo, Luce, San Polo, San Filipo, Valdicava and others also managed this climatically exceptional year beautifully. All produced 100-point wines.

This year’s tastings are led by the Pieve Santa Restituta Brunello di Montalcino Rennina 2015 (99 points), which is “perfumed and pretty with dried berry, orange peel and fruit tea on the nose. Full-bodied, extremely tight and refined with superb tannin quality … Best wine ever from here,” according to James. Pieve Santa Restituta also scored well (97 points) with its Sugarille 2015 wine, described by James as “A fantastically structured, serious 2015 Brunello with crushed-berry, chocolate and walnut aromas and flavors.”

Two other highlights on 97 points include the “gorgeous and complex” Mastrojanni Brunello di Montalcino 2015, and the “refined and classy” Celestino Pecci Brunello di Montalcino 2015, while Villa I Cipressi, Celestino Pecci, and Querce Bettina also showed exceptional wines, all scoring 96 points.

“The words for the 2015 vintage are density, tannins and freshness,” Roberto Guerrini, whose family owns Eredi Fuligni, told James last year. He made the best wine of his life in 2015. “The wines are rich, yet they are fresh at the same time. It is a great year.”

Check out the cool and super informational video we shot last year with producers on the 2015 above.

After last year’s tastings James declared the 2015 in Brunello a fairy-tale vintage. “The 2015 vintage is a historical year for Brunello di Montalcino that nobody should miss,” he wrote in his report from October 2019. “So many of the wines we tasted showed a beautiful depth of fruit and endless length. … The seamless tannins seem to melt into the wine – a characteristic I have never seen in my 36 years visiting the area as a wine critic and journalist.”

After this year’s tastings there’s no reason to change our view.

See our full list of Brunello 2015 notes and scores below (available to subscribers).