Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
An excellent Brunello for the vintage with dense concentration of fruit and loads of dried-berry, chocolate, mahogany and earth aromas and flavors. Needs time to soften but very structured for 2011.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
An amazingly balanced wine at the 15% alcohol level. Though the trend of high alcohol in Brunellos has risen over the last two decades, the best producers are still making some pretty remarkable wines. The 2011 Fossacolle Brunello di Montalcino exhibits bright red fruits, savory earth and smoky oak. The wine's richness positions it perfectly with grilled meats or blue-veined cheeses. Drinking well now. (Tasted: August 11, 2016, San Francisco, CA)
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2011 Brunello di Montalcino is a very beautiful wine that evolves slowly in the glass to reveal ever more intensity. It offers generous cherry flavors followed by spice, leather, tobacco and grilled herb. The mouthfeel delivers a pretty level of softness and plushness. In general, I found this to be a very balanced wine. There's a nice level of understated simplicity that makes the wine appropriate for near-term consumption. But there is also enough complexity for moderate aging. Rating: 92+
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Wine Enthusiast
Aromas of baked plum, fragrant blue flower, cooking spice, toasted oak and a whiff of scorched earth come together on this robust wine. The hearty palate offers mature black cherry, raisin, Asian spice and oak alongside solid, close-grained tannins that leave a bracing finish.
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.