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Before djewesbury and I started our Mosel and Rheingau tour we bought this wine at the "civilised" supermarket in Cologne (I'm trying to awaken Daniel's interest in Italian wines). This wine was then drunk at the "Zum Krug" Restaurant in Hattenheim on the last evening of our trip. Not only was the restaurant with it's good food and great wine list (even by the glass) the zenith of our gastronomic experience of the week but the Brunello also was without doubt the wine of the week.

dark orange-brown colour, in the nose there were cloves, green peppercorns, a hint of tabacco, almonds and marzipan plus a bit of varnish on top of that, the nose reminded Daniel of a port from the 1950's (probably Croft), I have never seen Daniel so exited and happy before than when he was cherishing the fabulous nose of this wine (I must admit that at first I really feared for his reason ). But the nose was so lovely that you almost wished it could be bottled as a perfume. The body was medium, a little bit of sweet cherries in the mouth, quite big tannins and a restrained accidity, cherries and a pleasant accidity in the aftertaste, quite a very long finish. A really great wine.
I really hope that this Brunello has awakened Daniel's interest in Italian wines.

This Brunello has definitely awakened my interest, it was head and shoulders above most things I've drunk lately. In fact the nose was of an even older and more noble port, I thought later that it would have fitted in well at The Bell this Christmas and we might have had trouble guessing (from the nose alone) what it was.
Unfortunately for my future experiments this bottle was extremely reasonably prices and I'm unlikely to find such a bargain again in the near future. Andre, go and buy the lot.

I had another bottle of this Brunello on Friday. The cork came out completely intact, but was soaked for circa 5 mm. I decanted it for 2 hours and then started drinking it. It was much better after an additional hour, it had more body and was more fleshy. Next time I will decant it for 3 hours.