Padelletti was one of only three producers making Brunello when the wine first gained fame in the early 1900s, and the family has been growing vines in Montalcino since the 1500s, yet almost nobody has heard of them, because they farm barely four hectares and make hardly any wine. The cellar is still directly underneath the family house in the town itself. The Riserva comes from the oldest vines in their Rigaccini plot, on the cooler northern side of Montalcino at around 430 meters in alberese limestone and galestro marl; it ferments in cement with indigenous yeasts, macerates for roughly five weeks, then spends three years in large Slavonian and French casks. 2016 gave Montalcino a long, even season, with rain at the end of August followed by the cool tramontana wind, and the wines have pure fruit, firm tannin and real acidity. This bottle comes to us from a private cellar; at a decade old it is only just opening up, with years ahead of it. Give it a decant.