Winemaker Notes
Bright ruby red. The solid structure of the wine is evident from the slow movement with which it rotates in the glass. Floral notes that begin with violet and lavender and blend with small ripe red fruits and spices and licorice. The most evident element is the harmony of the characters within a velvety elegance. A balance that includes a surprising freshness and a dense fabric with saline notes and soft tannins. Good and pleasant persistence.
A gastronomic wine that must be accompanied by important dishes such as large pieces of roasted meat, aged cheeses and game.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Boasting a ripe fruit profile and an extra layer of thick texture, the Donatella Cinelli Colombini 2017 Brunello di Montalcino Prime Donne offers plenty of heft and fiber. The pretty, full-bodied approach presented here is enhanced by cherry, rose, wild blueberry, spice and ferrous earth. Prime Donne is also firm and more structured on the palate. It should be interesting to follow this wine over the course of its 10-year evolution.
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Vinous
The 2017 Brunello di Montalcino Prime Donne dazzles with a captivating mix of violets and lavender, giving way to wild strawberries and a pleasantly grounding note of underbrush. This is elegant and refined, displaying silken textures and polished red fruits. It gains a more tactile feel toward the close, where saline-mineral tones mix with a saturation of fine tannins. The perfumed, floral finale is both structured and fresh, showing tremendous harmony for such a difficult vintage, as nuances of licorice and spice linger on. While this doesn’t possess the depth that I’ve come to expect from Prime Donne, it’s a nicely balanced and incredibly pretty rendition of the 2017 vintage.
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Wine Spectator
A lithe, long and intense red, with forthcoming aromas of woodsy undergrowth, mushroom, cherry and flowers gathering elements of iron, tobacco and tar on the palate. Today, the back end is framed by big tannins, yet all the components are in the right proportions. Best from 2024.
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Wine Enthusiast
Forest floor, French oak and camphor aromas come together in the glass. On the taut palate, close-grained tannins accompany dried cherry, prune and star anise before leaving a rather astringent close.
Among Italy's elite red grape varieties, Sangiovese has the perfect intersection of bright red fruit and savory earthiness and is responsible for the best red wines of Tuscany. While it is best known as the chief component of Chianti, it is also the main grape in Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and reaches the height of its power and intensity in the complex, long-lived Brunello di Montalcino. Somm Secret—Sangiovese doubles under the alias, Nielluccio, on the French island of Corsica where it produces distinctly floral and refreshing reds and rosés.
Famous for its bold, layered and long-lived red, Brunello di Montalcino, the town of Montalcino is about 70 miles south of Florence, and has a warmer and drier climate than that of its neighbor, Chianti. The Sangiovese grape is king here, as it is in Chianti, but Montalcino has its own clone called Brunello.
The Brunello vineyards of Montalcino blanket the rolling hills surrounding the village and fan out at various elevations, creating the potential for Brunello wines expressing different styles. From the valleys, where deeper deposits of clay are found, come wines typically bolder, more concentrated and rich in opulent black fruit. The hillside vineyards produce wines more concentrated in red fruits and floral aromas; these sites reach up to over 1,600 feet and have shallow soils of rocks and shale.
Brunello di Montalcino by law must be aged a minimum of four years, including two years in barrel before realease and once released, typically needs more time in bottle for its drinking potential to be fully reached. The good news is that Montalcino makes a “baby brother” version. The wines called Rosso di Montalcino are often made from younger vines, aged for about a year before release, offer extraordinary values and are ready to drink young.