Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2006 Brunello di Montalcino is fabulous in this vintage. Waves of dark fruit caress the palate as this juicy, delicious wine reveals its considerable charms. The fruit shows lovely weight and richness while maintaining an essentially mid-weight personality. Sweet scents of French oak linger on the round, caressing, impeccable finish. This is an excellent choice for drinking now and over the next decade-plus. The harvest took place from the 2nd to the 5th of October. The wine spent 24 days on the skins, after which it was racked into cask, where it spent 45 months prior to being bottled. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2024.
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Wine Spectator
There are plenty of cherry and plum flavors in this rich red, along with notes of bramble, spice and camphor. The tannins are dense and assertive now, and a sweet fruit component balances the finish, ending with a long aftertaste. Best from 2013 through 2027.
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Wine Enthusiast
This Brunello offers unbeatable quality for price. The wine opens with beautiful fullness, generosity and round, soft contours. Aromas include exotic spice and mature cherry. That typical Sangiovese brightness livens the mouthfeel.
Editors’ Choice
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.