2010 Caparzo Brunello di Montalcino La Casa 750 ml

2010 Brunello “La Casa”: Stealing the Show at Gotham Hall

On a cold February morning in N.Y.C., we grabbed a subway for Penn Station, then walked a few blocks to Gotham Hall at 36th and Broadway. We picked up a couple double cappuccinos to go, then took a seat on the steps outside. It was 10 a.m. The doors wouldn’t open for the Consorzio di Brunello di Montalcino’s tasting for another 90 minutes. But this was the stateside coming-out party for the most talked-about Brunello vintage in decades, and we weren’t about to be late for the show.

We worked the room like Bogart in “Casablanca,” reeling in allocations from the superstars of the appellation, including Poggio Antico, Fuligni, Costanti, Altesino, and Lisini. But while we were able to squeak out an allocation of the 2010 Caparzo Brunello di Montalcino (arguably the bargain of the vintage), when it came to Caparzo’s far-more-sought-after, top-of-the-line cuvée — “La Casa” — even our longstanding partnership with the winery’s importer (also the importer of Château de Beaucastel in Châteauneuf-du-Pape) offered no leverage.

“You’ll have to wait,” we were told. “You know the game. In vintages like 2010, particularly with the small yields, the restaurants come first — about 75 between L.A., San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. Then we have a half-dozen retailers that were big supporters of Caparzo before anyone was even selling wine on the internet. After all those guys, if there’s anything left, we promise — WineAccess is next.” It was one of the most professionally crafted letdowns we’d heard since joining WineAccess in 2006.

How to explain the dark colors, explosive aromatics, and sumptuous tannic structure of the 2010 Brunelli? In conversations with over two dozen producers, there wasn’t a dissenting voice in Gotham Hall. As Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate reiterated, 2010 shows the best traits of 2006 and 2007 — in tandem — combining “the freshness, structure, linearity and aging potential of 2006 with the intensity, opulence, balsam distinctiveness and tannic richness of 2007. In 2010 you get it all.”

As for the 2010 “La Casa,” it all but stole the show on that wintry afternoon on 36th and Broadway.

The 2010 Caparzo Brunello di Montalcino Vigna “La Casa” is vivid dark-ruby, the nose alone well worth the price of admission. Pungent aromas of wild berries, dark plum, licorice, and dried flowers. Rich and voluptuous on the attack, at once dense and perfectly light on its feet, the core is packed with a luscious mix of black raspberry, black cherry, and cola, finishing with the dusty tannin backbone that so distinguishes “La Casa” in great vintages. Drink 2016-2030.

Our first salvo of 180 bottles of one of the most extraordinary Brunelli of 2010 disappeared in a flash last June. The last 10 cases are now up for grabs. 95 points from Parker’s Wine Advocate. 96 more from James Suckling. $85 on release. $59 today on WineAccess — shipping included on 4.