Aromas of dried strawberries and plums with hints of toasted walnut, bark and wet asphalt. Medium-bodied with crunchy tannins and juicy red and blue fruit in the middle. Sappy and racy at the end. Drink now.

Fattoria Colsanto is a steady producer from near the bijoux Umbrian town of Bevagna. The 2015 Montefalco Sagrantino reveals a bold and very opulent personality that is pushed forward by hot-vintage fruit and lots of oak. The wine's alcohol clocks in at a high 15.5%. The bouquet is redolent of toasted spice, redwood, dried fig and sticky vanilla bean. The effect is rich, slightly sweet and quite firm given the natural astringency of the tannins. Production is 6,700 bottles.

I found it very hard to take all the in-your-face power packed into this 2013 Montefalco Sagrantino from Fattoria Colsanto. The wine first hits you with dried fruit, and the tannins are a bit dried out too, with perfumes of wet ash or cardboard. In the end, it was too heavy, too richly extracted and too evolved. There's some old spice and cured tobacco in this wine that has a production of 30,000 bottles.

Leather, tar, pencil shavings, graphite and smoked wood from the Livon family of Friuli who recently acquired this Umbrian winery and 20 hectares of vineyard not far from Assisi. ——M.L.(9/1/2005)—— 87