Winemaker Notes
Try pairing with roasts and split-roasted meats, grilled meats, game, braised meats, and aged cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Very aromatic with cedar, dried flower, cherry and smoke. Medium to full body, firm and chewy tannins and a polished and tight finish. Needs another three or four years to open.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The single-vineyard 2013 Brunello di Montalcino Vigna la Casa is immediately distinguished by aromas of smoke, flint and dark fruit. This wine offers more depth and complexity compared to Caparzo's base Brunello from this same excellent vintage. Unlike the base Brunello, however, this wine will definitely require more time to open and flesh out as it continues its bottle evolution. The fruit is a little less accessible at this young stage in the wine's lifespan. It shows lots of energy and tightness at its core that should soften and blossom over the next 5 years. It should be worth the wait.
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Wine Spectator
Textbook aromas and flavors of cherry, iron, almond, leather, and tobacco are the highlights here. This starts out softly before showing deceptive balance and freshness on the lingering finish. Best from 2021 through 2035.
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Wine Enthusiast
Alluring scents of chopped mint, dried rose, graphite, forest floor and wild berry waft out of the glass. It's ethereally elegant, offering red cherry, pomegranate, star anise and white pepper alongside bright acidity and firm, refined tannins. Drink 2023–2033.
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Wine & Spirits
This comes from a 12.5-acre parcel in the cool northern subzone of Montosoli, where the vines soak up sunshine on a southto-southeast-facing slope. Its enticing scents of lavender and thyme mingle with vibrant flavors of dark cherry and licorice; a year in tonneaux and two more in large oak casks contributed subtle leather and spice dimensions.
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.