Winemaker Notes
Vibrant and well-built, this wine has power to match the cherry, leather, and earth aromas and flavors. This Cru wine shows a pretty mineral character that lifts above the bright red fruit. That special aromatic signature is followed by dark fruit and balsam herb, firm tannins and bright acidity.
This wine is a perfect accompaniment for red meats and various Italian cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This is a second single-vineyard wine made by Cortonesi. The 2017 Brunello di Montalcino Poggiarelli reveals dense and rich fiber that wraps thickly but smoothly over the palate. This wine is woven tightly with soft layers of black fruit, plum, spice, tar and licorice. It is important to underline the difference between the more compact and vertical La Mannella against this more generous and broad-based wine, especially when making food-pairing decisions. This is your proverbial charred-meat wine.
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James Suckling
Juicy red with blood-orange, hazelnut, chocolate and spice character. Sour cherry, too. It’s medium-bodied and in-check with dusty tannins and a flavorful finish. Fine and focused. Drink or hold.
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Decanter
With holdings in two distinct areas of Montalcino, Cortonesi bottles each separately embracing the diversity of sites. Located in the southeast, Poggiarelli’s high altitude helped mitigate the extreme heat of 2017. Nevertheless, it is a more hearty and chewy expression compared to the Mannella bottling. Earthy, irony and baked clay aromas lead, with mint and chocolate nuances joining in on the palate. The tannins are thick and fairly wood driven. While this needs a bit of time to come together, it will give most of its pleasure in the near to mid-term.
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Wine Enthusiast
Aromas of underbrush, menthol and tobacco along with a whiff of dark spice form the subtle nose. The robust palate features dried cherry, steeped prune, coffee and licorice framed in grainy tannins that leave an extremely drying finish. Despite the assertive tannins, drink sooner rather than later to capture the remaining fruit richness.
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Wine Spectator
An elegant style, boasting strawberry, cherry, floral, mineral and herb aromas and flavors. Firms up, with the compact tannins providing grip on the finish, yet this red is also long. Best from 2025 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.