2010 Caparzo Brunello di Montalcino Riserva 750 ml

Dancing a Jig on Broadway: The Historic 2010 Brunello di Montalcino Riservas

In February 2014, the greatest names of Montalcino arrived in New York for the unveiling of the 2010 Brunelli, the highest-rated vintage in history. To beat the crowds, we stood on the steps of Gotham Hall for two hours, shivering and sipping double cappuccinos to take the bite out of the light snow and sleet. Five hours later, we were dancing a jig on Broadway, having carved out respectable allocations from a dozen estates, including Altesino, Poggio Antico, Caparzo, Fanti, and Costanti.

Still, the buoyancy of our moods was tempered by our inability to reel in the greatest prizes of the vintage. While many producers were pouring their 2010 Riservas, none were ready to offer allocations or, given all the critical hype, to quote prices. We pushed. We squeezed. We hobnobbed. But all of our tactics were for naught.

What was so captivating about the Riservas on display? Sangiovese, at its best, is Italy’s answer to Grand Cru Burgundy. But unlike Pinot Noir, Tuscany’s noble red is horribly capricious, notorious for uneven ripening. As a result, the great vintages in Montalcino share something in common: The growing season is long and dry — but not terribly hot — enabling the top estates of the appellation to let their fruit hang. Sugars climb incrementally as seeds ripen and brown.

It happened in 1995 and again in 1996. But, as we’d learn while tasting the finest Riserva ever drawn off Caparzo’s oldest vines, never in Tuscan history had Montalcino been blessed with a vintage like 2010. Spring was wet and pretty cold, delaying flowering and retarding the vegetative cycle. Summer then turned cool, absent the heat spikes that blistered clusters in 2009. From June to late August, little rain fell. Then, as if on cue, perfectly timed showers in the last week of August refreshed the vines, erasing any vestige of hydric stress. September was again warm and dry, but with a dramatic diurnal temperature shift. The difference between daytime highs and nighttime lows was more like Mendoza than Tuscany.

As we learned that day at Gotham Hall, and more recently over dinner on Central Park South, the 2010 Caparzo Brunello di Montalcino Riserva ranks among the most extraordinary wines of the year — at ANY price. Caparzo, always known for its more modernistic expression of Sangiovese, crafted a powerfully structured, magnificently concentrated, deep, dark, and brooding Riserva that really shouldn’t be touched until the early 2020s. Voluptuous aromatically, with a lavish core of black cherry preserves, dark plum, tobacco, and dried flowers, set off by the ripe-tannin backbone that one only finds in extended growing seasons like 2010.

Offered today at a SMALL fraction of the price of the other top-rated 2010 Riservas. That’s the good news. The bad? Just 240 bottles — the largest allocation in America — are now up for grabs. Please limit purchases to no more than 6 bottles per member!