Winemaker Notes
The 2020 Montiano is intensely ruby red in color, with aromas of blackberries, blueberries and ripe cherries on the nose intertwining with hints of sweet spice. The palate is robust, supple, elegant, and refined. Comprising a generous finish with silky, well-integrated tannins, the 2020 Montiano will continue to age well over time.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Famiglia Cotarella 2020 Montiano Cotarella starts off in new barriques that are eventually passed over to the Sodale program. This vintage shows a nice blast of varietal typicity with lots of cherry and blackberry. There is an amalgamated softness and roundness thanks to 14 months in oak. You get a savory side with tobacco and barbecue spice with soft tannins and thick texture.
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James Suckling
A very pretty wine with blackcurrants, minerals, dark chocolate and some toasted oak. Perfumed, refined and polished in nature. It’s medium-bodied with a refined texture and a persistent finish. Elegant and bright. Attractive now, but better in a year or two.
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Vinous
The 2020 Merlot Montiano is youthfully dark and brooding, smoldering up from the glass with an exotic blend of crushed black raspberries, blueberries, blood orange and incense. This is elegant and refined. Brilliant acidity energizes a core of vibrantly ripe red and blue fruits. A chalky air of violet pastille coats the palate. It's impossibly long and staining through the finale, with sweet tannins that frame the experience perfectly without slowing its momentum. This sun-kissed vintage of Montiano Merlot aims to please yet never falls out of balance.
Rating: 93+ -
Wine Spectator
A harmonious red, with plum sauce and sun-dried black cherry fruit flavors underscored by savory notes of loamy earth and herbed olive. This is medium- to full-bodied and elegant, integrating fine-grained tannins that firm the finish of paprika and anise spice accents. Drink now through 2034.
With generous fruit and supple tannins, Merlot is made in a range of styles from everyday-drinking to world-renowned and age-worthy. Merlot is the dominant variety in the wines from Bordeaux’s Right Bank regions of St. Emilion and Pomerol, where it is often blended with Cabernet Franc to spectacular result. Merlot also frequently shines on its own, particularly in California’s Napa Valley. Somm Secret—As much as Miles derided the variety in the 2004 film, Sideways, his prized 1961 Château Cheval Blanc is actually a blend of Merlot and Cabernet Franc.
Known as the ancient homeland of the Latins, today there is a vigorus wine industry beyond the city limits of modern, bustling Rome. The Cesanese grape, full of red berry, spice and rose, is responsible for Lazio’s only true local reds. Lazio’s most famous white wine, called Frascati, is based on the local Malvasia del Lazio and Trebbiano Toscana. A sweet version, called Cannellino di Frascati, is also made.