Cerbaiona, Toscana Rosso “Lot 8/19”

This is the most unique Tuscan red wine any of us is likely to taste this year. And I can’t stress this enough: “unique” is not a euphemism for “weird.” Cerbaiona’s sumptuous “Lot 8/19” is readily identifiable as first-class Tuscan Sangiovese, as one would expect from one of Montalcino’s true ‘boutique’ estates, but there are a few experimental twists to the story that really distinguish this wine.First off, the Sangiovese component of the wine (90%) comes not only from Cerbaiona’s estate vineyard in Montalcino, but from two leased sites—one nearby, in the Val d’Orcia, and another up north in Chianti Classico, a high-elevation site in the Alta Valle della Greve (which also supplies Poggio Scalette with the Sangiovese for its acclaimed “Il Carbonaione” super-Tuscan). Then, GM/Winemaker Matthew Fioretti reached even further afield, to the Apennine foothills northwest of Florence, for some Pinot Noir (the remaining 10% of this wine) from the Marchesi Pancrazi estate in San Donato. This is