Winemaker Notes
Color intense-red with marked garnet hues. Aromas intense and persistent with a round wood Strong bouquet of berry, cherry and other sweet red fruits.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This really shows beautiful, intense purity of fruit with ripe-cherry and mineral character, as well as fresh flowers and some cedar. Turns slightly meaty. Full-bodied with chewy tannins and a juicy, flavorful finish. Mouth-coating tannins. Needs five or six years to come together. Try after 2025.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2016 Innocenti Brunello di Montalcino is from south-facing slopes north of the town of Montalcino where brothers Gianni and Massimo Innocenti operate their small family owned estate. The wine offers rustic aromatics of spiced plum, aniseed, saddle leather and dusty earth. The palate is full of dried sour cherry, amaro, and tomato leaf, with angular tannins and tangy acidity. The 2016 opened up quickly with some air and is a rich, food friendly and traditional expression. Drink over the next ten years.
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.