Winemaker Notes
Pair with flavorful dishes like red roasted meat and game,seasoned cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
The nose has the sharp savoriness of new leather and cracked pepper but also the radiance of plums and wild strawberries. On the palate, fruit leads the way, but the bitterness of dark chocolate and orange peel, along with chalky but defined tannins, create balance through the finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Brunello di Montalcino starts off with big flavors and ends on a similarly robust note. Interestingly, however, the wine is slender and lean on the mid-palate, diverting to an almost fragile character. It shows a unique sense of momentum, with shifting intensity that keeps things interesting. At the end of the day, I would mark this wine down on the more elegant and finessed side of the Brunello spectrum. There is a pretty note of sweet cherry on the finish.
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Vinous
Darkly floral and woodsy in the glass, the 2018 Brunello di Montalcino opens up to show flinty crushed rocks, dried cherries, plums and dusty rose. It's soft and round on the palate with a pure mix of red and black fruits offset by a twang of sour citrus, as hints of licorice form toward the close. Its tannins come on strong through the finish, creating a classically dry yet slightly muted Brunello, as hints of clove slowly fade.
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.