2015 Fontodi, Flaccianello delle Pieve, Colli della Toscana Centrale IGT 1x3L

Robert Parker 98

This retrospective gave me the opportunity to taste the excellent 2015 vintage side by side with the highly anticipated 2016 vintage. These two years are famously in a tight race across Tuscany for supremacy. I’m ready to tip my hat at 2016. In comparison, the 2015 Flaccianello della Pieve is slightly broader in the shoulders and heavier in the gait. There is more meat on these bones, and the 2015 vintage presented vintners with near-perfect growing conditions in which one textbook part of the vegetative cycle transitioned directly to the next. The wine is dark, exuberant and profound, and the quality of the tannins is superb, fine and firm. One difference with the 2016 vintage is that the 2015 is a tad more accessible and ready. You can wait and cellar it for thirty years, or pop the cork sooner if you don’t have the patience to wait. [Monica Larner, 07/03/2019]

Anticipated maturity: 2020-2050

Vinous 98

The 2015 Flaccianello della Pieve is truly remarkable. An exotic mélange of black cherry jam, chocolate, grilled herbs and spice melds together in a huge, beautifully layered wine of exceptional class and pedigree. The 2015 manages to be dense and rich, but never overdone. The 2015 spent 20 months in French oak, 80%, followed by 6 months in cask. It is the final phase of aging in large wood that seems to help integrating the smaller oak influence. The 2015 is shaping up to be a modern-day icon. There’s not much more to it than that. [Antonio Galloni, 02/22/2019]

Anticipated maturity: 2022-2045