Winemaker Notes
Intense ruby red in color, this Brunello has a complex and balanced nose, showing aromas of raspberries and licorice with notes of chocolate and spice. Warm and full on the palate, the flavors are beautifully pronounced with excellent length.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A complex and slightly old-fashioned wine with aromas of oak bark, dried oranges, violets and cherry pits. Graceful palate with velvety, slightly dusty tannins, crisp brilliant acidity, umami flavors and a full body. Warming and persistent. Try from 2028.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2021 Brunello Di Montalcino Vigna Delle Raunate is lush and ripe with aromas of mocha, cherry pit, blood orange, fresh leather, and turned earth. The palate is more lively than the nose would initially suggest and sports a refreshing spine of acidity, refined, ripe tannins, and a wonderful level of focus and mouthwatering length and tension. It's going to require some patience, but I anticipate this one shining even more brightly with a little time.
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Vinous
The 2021 Brunello di Montalcino Vigna Delle Raunate is hauntingly dark with nuances of black tea, plum, minty herbs and mocha forming its smoldering bouquet. It is silken, nearly weighty in feel, with a core of zesty acidity to balance masses of red and black fruits. Edgy tannins pinch at the cheeks as hints of licorice and allspice resonate through the long, youthfully tense finale.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Savory and oak-driven, the Mocali 2021 Brunello di Montalcino Vigna delle Raunate layers toasted spice and tobacco onto a core of dark fruit and dried plum. The wine shows a medium garnet hue and a medium- to full-bodied mouthfeel, accented by cinnamon and clove that underscore the influence of oak. Aging spans two years in oak casks followed by one year in tonneaux, shaping a structured, spice-forward expression released in a total of 6,000 bottles.
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.