97 POINTS! The simply GLORIOUS Cupano estate, biodynamically farmed, on a pristine little hamlet just outside of the ancient village of Camigliano – and we’ve got this at the BEST PRICE IN THE USA!

You know I love me a great Brunello – at a great price, of course –  with the sort of scores that my mom could only have dreamed of when I was in school! And…yes…this is 100% THAT. And it is freakin’ delicious, to boot – irregardless of the 97 POINT score and widespread critical praise. But when we tell you the wine business is all about friendships, we MEAN IT. So we’re circling back to my boy, Ema Graetz, who put us in touch with the one and only Andrea Polidoro – a recent “Vinous Icon” – and long-serving winemaker for this remarkable Montalcino estate. Over a sushi dinner in Napa (naturally), Andrea told us how he had been on the press side of the wine biz, rating wines and interviewing vintners from France to Italy, for years. Then, by chance, he tasted Lionel Cousin’s relatively UNKNOWN Cupano wines and fell deeply, madly, in love. He consistently found himself rating them step-in-line with SASSICAIA in blind tastings, which is no easy feat, mind you. So Andrea abandoned his career in Bordeaux and went to work and learn everything he could under Lionel – soaking it all up like a sponge. But HOLD UP…it gets even better!

Now, Lionel was a filmmaker by trade, but that didn’t stop him from learning how to make wine under one of the greatest…Burgundy…winemakers…EVER! The simply LEGENDARY Henri Jayer was Lionel’s family friend, and he mentored him for several years once Lionel and his wife Ornella, bought this stunning little hamlet in Montalcino back in the mid-90s. After making the wines for the first 15 years – and gaining as much respect as a French winemaker in Montalcino could ever hope for – Lionel passed the reins to his understudy Andrea in 2014 – while still keeping a close watch on his progress.

Long-aging (for a minimum of 38 months) in Burgundy barriques (with a little bit of new wood in each vintage) is what really sets this wine apart – you know, on top of the BIODYNAMIC farming, native yeast fermentation, precision winemaking, and careful blending that is fixed firmly as the minimum benchmark in strict accordance with the Henri Jayer philosophy. The wine is aromatically FLAWLESS, with dark, rich, hypnotic notes that range from black cherry kirsch, to new leather, to balsamic roasted herbs, with green tobacco, crushed mint, and smoldering cinnamon…WOWZA! The flavors pick you up like Joey Tribbiani in his prime, pelting you with plums, sour cherries, pulverized raspberries, sweet sage, vanilla, crushed gravel, and zesty blood oranges. It’s powerful, but supremely deft, with a heat that spreads elegantly over a few vigorous moments in the glass. Somehow simultaneously a wine that is unmistakably Brunello, and yet unlike any other Brunello I’ve tasted for some time. It’s everything I want to drink, and all I want to share with my wine friends in this moment…and that includes each and every one of you! Not enough to go ‘round to all y’all, sadly – but for those lucky souls that snag this…be sure to share it with someone special! 

While it lasts!