Winemaker Notes
Intense and deep ruby-red color. A red berry bouquet with hints of vanilla and earth. A richness of fruit and herbs on the palate with complex tannins that leave your mouth clean and ready for more. Powerful yet elegant and complex, with a long wonderful finish.
Blend: 100% Sangiovese
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This is a delicious, complex and layered Brunello with cherries, nutmeg, licorice, dried flowers and walnuts on the nose. Firm and fine tannins give a sturdy framework to the evolving and concentrated core of fruit and spice. Powerful and seductive.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The organic Donatella Cinelli Colombini 2018 Brunello di Montalcino Prime Donne represents a special selection of Sangiovese that shows darker concentration and extra fruit weight. The wine veers toward the full-bodied side of the Brunello spectrum, offering plenty of plummy black fruit, tar, spice and soft tobacco smoke. The wine's savory component is more prominent compared to Donatella's Brunello annata. As always, this remains a wine of unique character and strength.
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Wine Enthusiast
An elegant, balanced nose has layers of umami flavor, with wild herbs, crushed rock, tar, mushrooms, balsamic vinegar and mixed spices. Deeper notes of macerated berries and dark chocolate then roll from the nose onto the palate, before a peppery finish that lingers with warmth.
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Wine Spectator
Boasts juicy, expressive black cherry and blackberry fruit, picking up accents of iron, eucalyptus and leather. Shows power and intensity, along with excellent balance and a long finish. Best from 2025 through 2043.
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.