Fuligni 2007 Brunello Di Montalcino, $63.74-$74.99, 93 points, appears coppery red with a transparent rim.
The avant-garde floral cedar leads the way of a complex train of residual aroma notes including bourbon (14.5% alcohol), radish, roasted sesame seed, and fennel.
The medium body carries bright acidity and tart tenacious tannin.
Flavors of red cherry, pomegranate, strawberry, and coffee were all impacted by the strong bourbon notes which followed the very long finish of snowballing chili-flake spice and mint.
As for value? I'm not disappointed, but others may find the premium just a bit much!
We had this Brunello side-by-side with Fuligni's 2009 Rosso, which makes for interesting comparisons. Let me just say that for the twelve hour period of drinking this wine, it would seem that we could have partaken of it for a few days without much degradation, except the bottle didn't last!
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Interestingly, CT scored this Brunello 90.6 (good avg. score for them), but just one and a half points (89.1) higher than the 2009 Rosso, which means to me a disparity of judgment, considering that tasting side-by-side, clearly demonstrated a FAR superior wine with the Burnello, far more complex, delicious, and interesting; maybe this is just apples and oranges, but somehow I think that the complexity of scoring a wine can be a relative nightmare, and one of the great challenges in scoring wines is consistency (not an easy task).
ReplyDeleteDennis,
ReplyDeleteI did not like this wine. I found it to be one of the weakest 2007's I've tried to date. Maybe I got a flawed bottle some how. But you're right, for the $$$ there are lots of good Brunello out there. I've got the 2006 Fuligni too, but haven't tried it yet.
John we talked about this wine on your blog, how JS scored the wine 95 pts, and you scored the wine 90 points; at first I was going with your recommendation to forgo buying this Brunello, but due to the scarcity of Brunello wines in NH and JS's review, decided to buy one bottle. I don't exactly understand your 'beef' with this wine, but all of us tasting it were fairly impressed (more-so than with the '07 Banfi); I tend to think that the "bourbon" flavor is not one of your favorites, and it was a bit over-powering, and reminded me of the 2006 Capanna. Either way, our palates have found a rare place of divergence, which is bound to happen.
DeleteOh, I did predict I would end up between you and JS; wish fulfillment?
You did indeed. It could be the house style - or perhaps my bottle was off. In general, I prefer the 2006s to the 2007s - so that may factor into it as well. We'll see how the 2006. Cheers!
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