Winemaker Notes
Ruby, tending towards garnet with age. Penetrating, ample, and extremely complex, with wild berry fruit, spice, and vanilla.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Beautiful combination here of balanced orange and lemon rind and riper glazed cherries, terracotta and scorched earth. Mushroom too. Tightly wound and elegant with a persistent core of mineral acidity and finely wrapped-up tannins. Drink from 2021.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Caparzo's 2015 Brunello di Montalcino Vigna La Casa opens to a very fine and precise bouquet that is carefully assembled with crisp berry notes, smoke, tar, licorice and toasted almond. The wine remains very tight and crisp overall, but it does cede to more volume and puts on more weight as it opens in the glass. There is a pretty note of crushed stone or granite on the close. The La Casa vineyard site is characterized by clay soils broken up with shards of Galestro schist that adds to the cool and fresh profile of the wine. This lovely single-vineyard Brunello is almost ready to drink (wait a few more years), but it should also withstand the next 10 years of cellar aging should you decide to put your bottle aside. Some 15,000 bottles were produced. The wine was bottled in August 2019 and released in January 2020.
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Decanter
With an enviable position on the Montosoli hill, Caparzo's La Casa vineyard has been vinified separately since 1977 and is among the first single-vineyard bottlings in Montalcino. Like the regular Brunello, La Casa possesses surprising underling acidity which gives brightness and focus to the wine; the northern exposition of the plot certainly played a factor in this. Fresh herbs and pomegranate offset sunbaked earth and incense nuances. The palate is quite substantial and concentrated, with tactile tannins, though it stays fresh and fluent. Drinking Window 2021 - 2033
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Wine Spectator
Spicy cherry, raspberry and plum flavors are shaded by tobacco and earth notes in this savory red. Elegant and solidly built, with refined tannins upholding the lingering finish. Shows good sweetness courtesy of the ripe fruit. Best from 2023 through 2040.
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.