Winemaker Notes
Ruby red color with a nose rich in spices with hints of vanilla and nuances of ripe berries. Elegant and harmonious palate with good tannins.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
A sanguine nose glimmers with the tang of topsoil and iron, while umami aromas of balsamic and herbs provide depth and notes of cherry and orange peel add more tang. The palate brings warmer flavors of fruit and earth, which swirl together to create a lovely, sophisticated bitterness that’s polished to a gleam by structured, dense tannins and bouncy acid.
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James Suckling
Black-cherry, lavender and rosemary-flower aromas with hints of spices and stems, following through to a medium body with firm and silky tannins that show integration and presence. Slightly chewy. But it’s polished and real.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Smoky and brooding, the 2019 Brunello Di Montalcino pours a rich ruby color and is aromatic of toasted incense, graphite, black cherries, and leather. Its mineral accents take the forefront on the palate, with notes of bergamot, fresh acidity, and tight-grained tannins. I enjoy the nervous tension that this wine expresses, and it’s only going to improve if given the chance to unfurl. Drink 2025-2037.
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Wine Spectator
Macerated cherry and plum flavors are augmented by savory eucalyptus, wild herb and leather notes in this intense, lively red. Hints of rose hip and orange peel add detail as this winds down on the lingering, iron-tinged finish. Best from 2026 through 2040.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The organic Donatella Cinelli Colombini 2019 Brunello di Montalcino has a lot of oak that needs more time to integrate, if it ever will. You get dark fruit, sage brush and wood shop across from stewed fruit, raisin and baked plum. It offers a sticky feel to the palate, and the oak tannins come in strong. It definitely wants more bottle time, but the jury is out on the future integration of those tannins.
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Vinous
The 2019 Brunello di Montalcino smolders up from the glass with a dark array of dusty violets, sage and dried black cherries. This flows across the palate with silky, verging-on-creamy textures, all balanced by tantalizing acidity as tart wild berry fruits slowly saturate. The 2019 leaves a coating of fine-grained tannins that tug at the cheeks, finishing long and staining with an orange hint that adds lovely contrast.
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.