Winemaker Notes
Brilliant red with burgundy reflects. Penetrating aromas with memories of wild black fruits, black cherry and noble wood. Warm, dry and persistent on the palate. Wine of great body and elegance. It can be served with all our best dishes of the Tuscan tradition: in particular with roasted meat, game, braised meat and ripe cheeses like Pecorino cheese.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Walnut, bark and some cedar to the ripe-plum and cherry character. It’s medium-bodied with tight, linear tannins and fresh acidity. Just a hint of balsamic. Drink or hold.
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Wine Spectator
This is round, evoking plum and blackberry flavors, with vibrant acidity lending focus. Iron and tobacco elements join in as the finish builds, revealing dense, lively tannins. Best from 2023 through 2040.
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Decanter
In addition to achieving organic certification in 2012, Collemattoni's new cellar was built with rainwater recovery pipes and generates 80% of its own electricity through biomass energy and solar panels. Assembled from five vineyards all located in the southern reaches of Montalcino, this captures the intense ripeness of the vintage with sweet cherry fruit, chocolatey tannins and a creamy texture. Yet there is a refreshing juiciness and lift of woodland herbs underneath. A curvaceous, exuberant, jolly wine with lots of purity. Drinking Window 2021 - 2031
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Wine Enthusiast
This opens with aromas of black-skinned berry, underbrush and leather. The savory palate offers blackberry jam, licorice and tobacco alongside fine-grained tannins. Drink 2022–2030.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Collemattoni 2015 Brunello di Montalcino brings on good intensity and fruit definition with wild cherry, cassis and grilled herb, and you feel this especially in the mouth. The nose, however, shows less clarity, with fruit tones that are followed by charred red meat and potting soil. Serve it with marinated steak tips and asparagus au gratin.
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.