Avignonesi, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano (Tuscany, Italy) Le Badelle 2018 ($65)

I struggled to score this wine two points higher than its sibling from the La Banditella vineyard site, but was compelled to do so by the fact that there’s both “more wine” in a glass of this as well as more detail and depth and length. The depiction of the growing site on the front label shows that there are actually multiple plots involved, and even though there is an amphitheater-like layout to the topography, the orientation of the vine rows is significantly variegated, which helps to explain the multiplicity of sensory signals offered by the wine. It is both ripe and almost muscular, on one hand, but still fresh (even at seven years of age!), with dark-toned fruit more than red ones, and yet again, lingering freshness despite the nascent tertiary “bottle bouquet” notes from maturation. These are more evident in this wine than the La Banditella, strengthening the contrast between the two bottlings, with the La Banditella’s effortless freshness even more convincing after tasting this, and returning to the ambivalent “struggle” that I noted about scoring the two. If at all possible, taste them both and decide for yourself!
95 Michael Franz