INSIDER'S PICK: 2017 SOC. AGR. SCOPONE ROSSO DI MONTALCINO $21.99

For Thanksgiving, people will often look to pull out the 'big guns' to drink in celebration with their family, the most exciting and usually most expensive wines. The problem you can run into is that those wines are often built to age for a fairly long time, so if you aren't pulling one from out of the cellar you may be buying a wine that just isn't ready to drink right now. Classic favorites like Bordeaux, California Cabernet Sauvignon and Brunello di Montalcino are built for the long haul with lots of strong tannins and oak barrel aging, so in their youth those astringent characters will really dominate and can overwhelm all but the heartiest of meals. To serve with the meal itself, a safer bet is to do a more basic version of those favorites that use the same grapes and winemaking expertise, yet don't need a decade or more to round into form. A Rosso di Montalcino like this one, for example, uses the exact same grape variety as a Brunello and grown in the same privileged sites, just with less time aging in barrel and bottle before release. These are built for the purpose of drinking in the short term, allowing you to age the Brunellos until they are ready. 

This small and fairly newly formed house has been under the radar for most Montalcino fans, but as Vinous writer Ian d'Agata recently wrote 'I cannot think of too many estates in Montalcino whose wines have improved more over the last 10 years'. A lovely deep ruby color in the glass, the aromas are dark and classic for Montalcino, full of savory tobacco leaf, black cherry and dusty earth. There may be the slightest touch of oak aromas, but they sit well back of the grape's natural character, giving it a lot of naked complexity. The palate is equally approachable for the variety, with lots of up front dark dried fruit and more tobacco tones, with the polished tannins only appearing on the finish where they have a long and lingering dustiness. This wine absolutely opens up and evolves over time and with decanting, picking up notes of sweeter fruits and potpourri, but the improvement can be marked by the hour or half hour as opposed to by the 3-4 hour blocks of time needed for a younger Brunello. The perfect Tuscan wine to actually serve with the diversity of a Thanksgiving dinner table, or to pop during an impromptu nosh while grazing the leftovers. 

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