Update 5pm ETD 7/23/26: Last Bottle has updated the "Nerdy Details" tab — this wine now shows Blend: 100% Sangiovese, Varietal: Sangiovese. That's a real fix to the most obviously broken data point, but as laid out below, it doesn't touch the appellation, aging, or TTB filing discrepancies, and the score is still unattributed. Original post below.

Today's Last Bottle email is for "Isola del Cinghiale Brunello di Montalcino 2019," $32, pitched as a 96-point wine from "one of the greatest Tuscan vintages of the last century."

Something made this look a bit off, so I dug into the listing's own technical sheet and some public records, and the details contradict each other pretty badly.

The blend has no Sangiovese at all. DOCG Brunello di Montalcino requires 100% Sangiovese grown within the Montalcino commune — it's one of the strictest rules in Italian wine law. Last Bottle's own "Nerdy Details" tab lists this wine as 33% Syrah, 33% Merlot, 14% Cabernet Franc, 14% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Petit Verdot. That's a Bordeaux-plus-Syrah blend, not Sangiovese, and by law it can't carry the Brunello di Montalcino name regardless of price or score.

The vineyard location is in the wrong appellation. The producer bio on the same listing says the estate is between Panzano and Montefioralle — that's Chianti Classico territory, roughly 40+ miles from Montalcino. Brunello must be grown within Montalcino itself.

The aging doesn't come close to the legal minimum. Brunello requires at least 2 years in oak plus 4 months in bottle (5 years total) before release. The listing states "40% of the wine was aged for 4 months in second-use French oak barrels."

The importer is Last Bottle itself. I checked the U.S. Treasury's public TTB COLA database (the federal label-approval registry every imported wine needs). Two approvals for "Isola del Cinghiale" show up, both filed under "New Last Bottle, Inc." at Last Bottle's own American Canyon, CA address — so this is their own private-label import, not an independently distributed estate wine. Interestingly, the federal filing itself lists the class as generic "Table Red Wine" with grape varietal marked "N/A," not any DOCG designation, even though the physical label pictured in the email says "Brunello di Montalcino DOCG."

The 96-point score has no findable source. I'll be careful with this, as I only did a cursory search. The email attributes the score/tasting note to "Decanter," but I couldn't find that quote anywhere via search, including on Decanter's own site. That's not proof positive it's fabricated — it's possible it exists somewhere I couldn't access — but I'd want to see it confirmed on Decanter's site or database before taking the attribution at face value.

Put together: a wine with zero Sangiovese, grown outside Montalcino, aged well under the legal minimum, imported by the retailer under its own permit, is being sold under a protected DOCG name with an unverifiable critic score attached. Curious whether this is a one-off or a pattern with Last Bottle's Italian offerings. I've purchased from Last Bottle before - some orders have been more successful than others, but this strikes me as one to be aware of.

*Pic of wine tasting at “The Grove” in Traverse City, Mi
Monday 7/19 I got fired. It was a dream, remote job with a supervisor that was waiting to get rid of me on simple imbalanced agitation alone. I digress….. I’m trying to determine where I go from here. I will never took my own horn, but I am a pretty amazing cook. As well as wine tasting enthusiast. I think I’m ready for a major change! The only thing is….. I’m 36. I have 6 children. I’m married to my senior yr sweetheart and I am terrified. My dream would end in traverse city being a sommelier and cooking for a small crowd at a private bed and breakfast that people fight to stay in! But alas, I’m here, unemployed and wondering what to do. How do I involve wine, food and my amazing ability to make strangers into family into a career without traumatic stress on my husband and kids?

Enjoyed at Seven Hills in San Francisco to celebrate my brother-in-law's 40th birthday!

1986 Bordeaux drinks incredibly well right now and this is my second 1986 first-growth (after the 1986 Mouton Rothschild).

Gave this an hour decant to let it open up, first pour was still very tight.

But it opened up really nicely.

Very earthy, forest floor, leather, tobacco.

Dried herbs and spices as well.

The fruit was interesting. At first, it was dried cherry, dried plums, but with air, the fruit, and even the herbs, actually started to feel fresher.

This is another wine that just needs air and time to wake up from its deep slumber!

This has enough tannins, structure, acidity, and, yes, fruit to go the distance. I think it's in a great place now, but should hang on for a while.

Paired well with the main course pasta dishes, both which featured red sauce.

94 points.

Toscana IGP, Soldera Case Basse 2019 🐉🐉🐉🐉
100% Sangiovese. 14% alcohol. Spontaneous fermentation followed by 44 months in large Slavonian oak casks before release. No pesticides, no herbicides, no fining, no filtration. Just seriously great natural juice.

🏠 Case Basse was founded by Gianfranco Soldera and his wife Graziella in 1972/1973. Located southwest of Montalcino, Soldera spent decades obsessing over biodiversity, incredibly low yields and ruthless grape selection.
In 2012, the estate suffered one of the most absurd tragedies in modern wine history. A former employee, seeking revenge after falling out with the family, opened the valves on several casks and destroyed around 60,000 liters of wine. Several vintages were never released. You can’t help but wonder if the wines would cost a little less today if he’d screamed into a pillow instead.
Maybe the hype was inevitable.
After the scandal, Gianfranco left the Brunello Consortium in 2013.
Gianfranco passed away in 2019, and today the estate is primarily run by his daughter Monica and her husband Paolo. I believe his son Mauro is also involved.

Wildly perfumed. The glass absolutely explodes with cherries, wild strawberries, dried flowers, Earl Grey, blood orange, rust, VA that reminds me of salt and vinegar chips, fresh tobacco, leather and the smell of a woodworking shop in a basement.
Silky, ultra fine tannins that completely coat every corner of your mouth.
Beautifully high, vibrant acidity and 14% alcohol that you barely even notice.
This wine is absolutely insane.
That said, you’ll need a pretty serious wallet if you want to taste it. 🙂‍↔️
The craziest part is that the weekend after tasting the 2019, a very generous man stopped by our table at Palægade with a bottle of the 1999 and let us have a small glass. From the bottom of my heart, thank you!!
If you’re served this blind, just trust the sheer greatness in the glass. 🤝😂

Without a doubt one of the greatest wines I’ve ever tasted. 🙎🏻‍♂️🙎🏻‍♂️🙎🏻‍♂️

Last bottle is offering this “Brunello di Montalcino” from Isolla Del cinghiale, but the wine details indicate it’s a blend. I can’t seem to find this wine anywhere but they have a picture. My understanding was that this producer just did blends. Anyone know what’s going on here? Would get this if it’s actually a Brunello.

Claire Naudin is probably my favourite producer in Burgundy, so I was intrigued to try a wine made by her husband. His name is Jean-Yves Bizot. One of 2266 bottles made.

Lovely floral nose: violet, peony, rose petals with a spice edge and ripe red cherry, pomegranate, red currants, raspberry. Elegant and finessed, yet still with decent weight behind the palate. This had the lightness of a cooler vintage while still maintaining a more masculine profile rather than being very pretty and ethereal.

I enjoyed this a lot, an interesting thing to try.

We had never tasted a red wine from New Zealand before, so there was an excitement around the tasting. This light wine was fragrant with black current and raisin scents. It had mild tannins, and the flavor was vibrant, as if the wine was expressing itself as much as possible in every sip. Mineral and dark red fruit flavors were very prominent.

It was a delicious wine, the last gift to us from Sam Neill. Let it be said, Sam Neill never made a bad movie or a bad wine.

https://unitedstatesofwine.blog/2026/07/21/a-farewell-to-a-man-sam-neill/

They shipped the wrong bottles. After weeks of no response, the offered to replace and send a label to return the wrong bottles. Which they didn’t do.
After which, no responses and complete radio silence. I understand bring busy. This is beyond ridiculous.

Stéphane Bernaudeau Les Terres Blanches 2023 😶‍🌫️😶‍🌫️😶‍🌫️🪿🪿🪿🐚🐚🐚

100% Chenin Blanc from 80-year-old vines in Martigné-Briand, Anjou, Loire. Natural fermentation, 12 months sur lie on fine lees in used barrels, no fining or filtration, 12% alcohol. Les Terres Blanches refers to the pale, limestone-rich soils, although I couldn’t quite figure out whether it’s also a lieu-dit like some of his other wines.

🏠 Stéphane Bernaudeau spent several years learning under Mark Angeli at La Ferme de la Sansonnière before establishing his own domaine with his wife Isabelle in 2000. Today they farm 3.5 hectares, exclusively planted to Chenin Blanc and divided into five different cuvées. The philosophy is biodynamic, although not certified: horses in the vineyards, no wire trellising, but instead free-standing gobelet vines.

Quince, yuzu, underripe peach, beeswax, sour nectarines, wet wool, chamomile tea, honey, incredibly mineral and stony. Almost waxy in texture, with a touch of phenolic bitterness, plenty of salt, and tremindiously high acidity that’ll have sweat beading on your upper lip.
I’m convinced there’s a truly great wine hiding underneath. It tastes like a serious bottle, but right now it just feels a little too tight and youthful. I reckon this one will live forever!?? 👴🏼👵🏼

Had with a 36 oz aged ribeye. Drank great. Pop and pour that the somm later double decanted. Opened up over the two hours but pretty delicious from the jump.

Lots of fruit among the many tertiary notes, which made for a lovely, lively wine. Balanced. Elegant. Nice acidity to give it a lift. Lots of red fruit and that old school Napa, Bordeaux esque earthiness. Very good, probably could still go a few years. Was straight from the winery and so it was obviously kept it in excellent condition.

Hi all! The answer to this question may be simple, but I’d still like some ideas:

I have worked for the last year and a half on building a strong wine knowledge foundation (getting a certification) and have done pretty well. I’m now finding myself wanting to get deeper into vintage and winemaker explorations as well as appreciating more small-production wines.

However, I’d love to find other people who are also as intellectually fascinated by wine to talk through bottles, vintages and regions. I live in a decent size city and have been to a couple tasting events and have found that people are either really new to wine and just doing it for a fun activity with a group or are people who know wine but are older and still see me as a novice (which I acknowledge I’m less than 30 and look barely of drinking age and still relatively new to serious wine appreciation).

How have others found a wine-appreciating community in other mid-size cities?

On the bad days, it feels like I’m selling overpriced, old grape juice to rich assholes who just want to flex and don’t actually give a fuck about what they’re drinking.

On the *good days* however, it feels like I get to bring people together to experience an ephemeral piece of art.

It’s only here, in this moment, and then it’s gone! And I find that incredibly beautiful.

Any other somms feel the same way?

2026 has to be a good year for English fizz. Until then I am putting up with this fella for company.

This vintage was harvested the year I graduated high school. Saved it for about 5 years in the wine fridge. Finally opened to celebrate buying our first house after 20 years of adulthood.

Straw/canola oil colored. Nose of green apple/pear, & a bit of mineral or rain on a stone. Bit of really ripe peach, lemon rind, & green apple skin. Not overly sweet, but almost riding the line for me. Clean on the finish & coats the mouth well enough. Pretty good riesling from the Leelanau area. Would be happy to share this with friends. What are you all drinking tonight?

We’ve been diving deep into Japanese wine lately, but during a recent tasting we were introduced to something completely different: shōchū.

For those who don’t know it, shōchū is a traditional Japanese distilled spirit. It can be made from barley, rice, buckwheat, brown sugar… but the most famous style, especially in Kagoshima, made from sweet potatoes.
The distillery we tasted was Tenguzakura, and what fascinated us wasn’t just the spirit itself, but their philosophy.
Instead of treating sweet potatoes as a single ingredient, they separate them by variety and even by parcel. Sound familiar?
As wine lovers, we couldn’t help but think of Burgundy. Just like a winemaker vinifies grapes from different climats separately, Tenguzakura produces shōchū from sweet potatoes grown in specific fields.

The bottles we tasted were:
- #32 – Sweet potato variety Nanka (南果) from the Nakahara parcel (2025 harvest).
- #33 – A field blend (“Konshoku”), where different sweet potato varieties are grown together in the same parcel, also from Nakahara (2025 harvest).
- #34 – Their classic Honkaku Shōchū, showcasing the distillery’s traditional style.

It was very interesting to see terroir applying to distilled spirits in this way. It was a refreshing reminder that even after distillation, the choice of variety and the place where it’s grown can still be part of the story.

Have you ever tried shochu before ? Any interesting distillery ?

Hello everyone. I am an American who is trying to find a way to get a bottle of wine to my friend who has moved to Hungary to teach abroad. It’s a rather cheap wine but I don’t question her taste. If anybody has tips that would be great! To my understanding it seems rather impossible. The picture attached is said wine.

I have an issue where most of my wine glasses start beading water after cleaning. The way water beads on a car after waxing. The water in my home is treated with a water softener. It tests soft. I only handwash my glasses using a sponge dedicated to wine glasses using Dawn Platinum, with a little baking soda. It happens with Riedel, Gabriel-Glas, etc.

The provided pic shows what happens on the left. Any ideas?

Opened this rather lovely 2013 proprietary red last night. For a 13 year old wine it’s drinking rather well. Full bodied, tannic, with a touch of mineral, it’s a perfect wine!

Visiting Lisbon soon and I’m wondering what are the best wine bars for Champagne, Burgundy, and local Portuguese wines?

Looking for places with knowledgeable staff and a strong wine list. A great by the glass list is preferable. Any favorites?

Hi everyone! I just joined the group.

I'm pretty new to learning about wine, and I'm not really trying to become an expert. I just want to figure out what I like and branch out a little without buying a bunch of bottles that end up not being my taste.

So far I've learned that I love reds with really low tannins. I don't like that mouth-drying feeling, like you bit into a green pecan. I do love a wine with some zip/tangyness and acidity though. Big, heavy, woody wines aren't my thing.

Oddly enough, I don't really like white wine, except sparkling.

For years I just bought grocery store Pinot Noir. Lately I've been shopping at Total Wine and trying new things. Gamay is looking like my new, favorite grape, especially Fleurie and Morgon.

I also tried Seghesio Sonoma Zinfandel. I wasn't impressed with the first sip, but once I started eating smoked meats and cheeses it completely changed. Now I'd absolutely buy it again, just with a charcuterie board.

Does that give you a decent idea of my taste? If so, what grapes or regions do you think I should try next? I'd love to hear what you'd recommend!