2018 San Filippo Le Lucere Brunello di Montalcino Tuscany 750 ml

San Filippo is an absolute rockstar producer, who turn everything they touch into absolutely thrilling wines, and owner Roberto Gianelli is one of the warmest, most quality-obsessed people in Montalcino. We’ve watched them blossom from nearly unknown to a winery with a page of accolades, including Top-100 mentions from multiple publications.

And the biggest reason we want to visit is to taste their single-vineyard Le Lucére bottling.

We try to buy it every single vintage—a powerful, concentrated masterpiece that combines a top terroir and careful, modern winemaking. But allocations are hard to come by: It’s been over half a decade since we’ve offered this wine.

The 2018 San Filippo Le Lucére bears a 96-point score from Decanter magazine and 95 points from Tuscan expert James Suckling, and we all love it for the same reason: A multi-dimensional palate, plus aromas that will keep you captivated all night, and a finish long enough to be written in dactylic hexameter.

Le Lucére is practically a clos, as it’s surrounded by forest on three sides. The hillside slopes east, and the combination of those factors—plus a healthy wind—means that it’s always the last of San Filippo’s sites to be harvested. Those late harvests are essential for creating rich, ripe grapes that have massive amounts of flavor, but without the burden of high alcohols.

San Filippo absolutely nailed it in the 2018 vintage, which was a tricky year that separated the wheat from the chaff in Tuscany (we think their commitment to organics helped). The joy of ‘18 is that it’s delicious now, but we plan on drinking our bottles—for once not carried back in a suitcase—until at least 2040.