Winemaker Notes
Vibrant and well-built, this wine has power to match the cherry, leather, mineral and earth aromas and flavors. As it is still very young, there are some tight tannins on the long and spicy finish that will mellow with a few years’ aging.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This is a very impressive Brunello, characterized by its incredible richness, which remains carefully judged. Vanilla, tar, treacle tart, dried blackberries, pumice and ash spring into action on the nose. Full-bodied and powerful with an ironclad force to the steely tannins. Chewy and long on the decadent finish, but balanced and savory.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This wine has been produced since 1998. The Cortonesi 2015 Brunello di Montalcino Poggiarelli sees fruit sourced from a two-hectare site located 420 meters above sea level with loose Galestro soils. Consequently, the wine shows a warm and soft personality with velvety layers of ripe fruit that wrap thickly over the palate. You get more black fruits here like plum, blackberry and dark cherry. Pretty balsam and herbal accents give the wine a greater sense of focus and direction.
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Decanter
Cortonesi's Poggiarelli cru is in the southeastern quadrant of Montalcino. Reaching up to 450 metres above sea level, it boasts rocky galestro soil. While their La Manella bottling ages in large Slavonian oak casks, this is matured in small French tonneaux. The oak is well-measured and enhances the wine but all of its components need time to knit together. It is full of the warmth and richness of the vintage, offering dark plum, forest bush, thyme and moist earth. Vigorous tannins keep everything in check. Drinking Window 2021 - 2031
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Wine Enthusiast
This opens with subtle aromas evoking underbrush, tobacco, baked plum and a whiff of French oak. It’s full-bodied and rather austere, featuring dried cherry and roasted coffee bean set against tightly knit, close-grained tannins.
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.