Sagrantino is a wine that makes you wait. A powerful red from Umbria that can only be found in the DOCG of Montefalco, it’s a grape that comes on strong in its youth but as it ages it transforms, becoming soft and refined. While I realize no one really has the time or patience to buy a wine and let it sit for 10 years, myself included, Sagrantino is worth the wait.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t fantastic Sagrantinos that are delicious now. One such bottle is made by the winery that started it all: Arnaldo Caprai. Until the 1970s, the region’s indiginous grape had always been vinified sweet. But Arnaldo Caprai decided to vinify it dry, and the result was a wine that has been coveted by collectors ever since.

Arnaldo Caprai’s wines are known for their power and finesse. The wine has a softness that allows it to be drunk much sooner than many of its counterparts, but aging it for years will only make it better.

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In the glass this wine is full of the flavors and aromas one expects from a dense and powerful red wine: dark red fruit aromas like plums and blackberries that are accented with background aromas of tobacco and leather. There is a nice amount of acidity present here along with a fruity richness and a wallop of powerful mouth-drying tannins. This is a wine that begs to be eaten with food, with meat being the optimal dish. It’s a wine worth splurging on.

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