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 chops, pasta and sausage.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
More open-knit than the 2019, the 2020 Brunello Di Montalcino Montosoli offers ripe aromatics of mocha, baked cherries, crushed flowers, and woodsy earth, with a sense of depth that reads immediately. The palate is medium to full-bodied and saturating, with ripe tannins, mouthwatering sapidity, and a broad-shouldered finish that stays balanced, and while fleshy, never feels hot.
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Wine Spectator
Ripe and succulent, featuring cherry, plum, earth, graphite and wild herb aromas and flavors. Vibrant acidity provides tension and drives this red to the prolonged aftertaste. Harmonious and complex, with terrific energy and length.
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.