Winemaker Notes
Ruby red color, which tends to garnet red with ageing. Very complex and intense nose, with fleshy fruit aromas, followed by elegant faded violet and rose notes. The taste is powerful, juicy, with a pleasant vertical freshness and well integrated tannins. Long and fruity finish with lots of berries.
Pair with lamb, pasta and sausage.
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
With the first tilt of the glass, you know that this is not your average 2017 Brunello di Montalcino. An enthralling bouquet of spiced citrus peels, roses, sour cherries, crushed rocks and animal musk keeps you at the edge of your seat. This is remarkably pure and delicate, seeming to hover across the palate, yet delivering a vivid mix of ripe wild berries, salty minerals and purple-tinged florals. Beneath, saturated tannins build, yet the expression remains fresh – almost mouthwatering, in fact – as sweet hints of plum and tobacco slowly fade. While the Baricci family doesn’t market their wine as a cru, this is indeed 100% Montosoli fruit from one of the region's top winemaking families. Bravo.
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Decanter
The 2017 vintage is significant for this estate as it is the year founder Nello Baricci passed away at the age of 96. His grandsons, Federico and Francesco Buffi are now at the helm. Baricci’s Brunello needs a few swirls to unleash striking scents of berry compote, flint and smoke. The palate is dense with berries – all cherry skin and pulp - and garden herbs. It is well-framed by chewy tannins with a pulverised stone texture. Though this shows its heat, there is an underlying lift. The finish reveals a pleasant bitterness, rather than sweetness, which cleanses the mouth.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Proudly from Montosoli, the Baricci 2017 Brunello di Montalcino shows a generous and authentic personality with earthy tones, dried fruit, ripe cherry and roasted herb. This warm-vintage wine is elegant and pure, although there is a meaty or smoky note that is part and parcel of the 2017 vintage. This wine registers 15% alcohol and a thick, open-knit texture. It could use a bit more fruit definition, and I would recommend a near or medium-term drinking window for this bottle.
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Wine Spectator
Blood and iron flavors frame the earth- and cherry-filled core of this firm, dry red. Though linear in profile, there is complexity here, offering a lively beam of acidity for lift. Tips to the dry side on the finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
Aromas of underbrush, toasted nut and eucalyptus shape the nose along with whiffs of blue flower and coconut. The warm, brawny palate offers dried cherry and licorice alongside the heat of evident alcohol. Firm, close-grained tannins provide the backbone. Give the tannins a few more years, then drink sooner rather than later to catch the remaining fruit richness.
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.