Winemaker Notes
Garnet red, with well-orchestrated wood that is worked into the ripe, sweet fruit and layered complexity.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Vibrant, linear and fragrant, this radiant 100% Sangiovese has enticing scents of wild berry, rose, new leather, tobacco and a balsamic whiff of camphor. It’s full bodied but boasts a silky-smooth finesse, delivering red cherry, pomegranate and exotic spice alongside polished, elegant tannins. Fresh acidity keeps it balanced. Drink 2021–2031. Cellar Selection.
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Wine Spectator
Black cherry and plum flavors are shaded by iron, earth and soy accents in this compact red. The core of ripe fruit stands up nicely to the dense structure. Persistent and fresh on the finish. Best from 2021 through 2030.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Boscarelli's Il Nocio vineyard is located on a little plateau just a short distance up the road from the estate's bijou winery. The 2016 Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Il Nocio displays a luminous, mid-weight appearance followed by bright and sharp berry aromas. Wild cherry and blueberry give the wine a lifted character, and there is mild spice, tilled earth and leather at the back. Most of all, this wine offers the precise linearity and sharpness (with extra acidity) that this vintage is known for.
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.
This significant Tuscan village—not to be confused with the red grape of the same name widely grown in Abruzzo and the Marche regions—was home to one of the first four Italian DOCGs granted in 1980.
Based on the Sangiovese grape (here called Prugnolo Gentile), the village’s prized wine called Vino Nobile di Montepulciano ranks stylistically in between Chianti Classico, for its finesse, and Brunello di Montalcino for its power. With a deep ruby color, heavy concentration and a firm structure given by the village's heavy, cool clay soils, most Vino Nobile di Montepulciano will demand some bottle age.