Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Sweet flowers, with blueberries and blackberries on the nose. Toffee and creme brulee. So complex and fine, it has everything you need. Full, very velvety, with soft and silky tannins, and a very, very long finish. Very beautiful smoothness of this wine.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Fuligni’s 2006 Brunello di Montalcino is one of the stars of the vintage. Sweet floral notes weave through a core of expressive red fruit as the wine opens up in the glass. The 2006 shows incredible purity and finesse, most notably in its silky, polished tannins. This isn’t a blockbuster, but rather a wine that conquers through its sheer finesse. The wine spent 27 days on the skins. The volume and weight are influenced by the modern school, everything else is traditional all the way. The 2006 is the first vintage in which the percentage of French oak has been dropped to 25%, which has allowed the purity of the fruit to shine through to a degree that I have seldom, if ever, seen here. Rain during June naturally lowered yields and may partly explain why Fuligni’s 2006 is so phenomenal. Simply put, readers won’t want to miss this superb Brunello.
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Wine Spectator
Shows fine intensity to its cherry, cedar, licorice and tobacco notes. There's sweetness at the core, with a supple texture and well-integrated tannins. Features a long, spicy aftertaste and wonderful harmony.
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Wine Enthusiast
Fuligni's newest Brunello is characterized by well-polished and very elegant tones of graphite and slate roof that give the wine a defined mineral backbone. It becomes more expansive on the palate thanks to its natural richness and fruit-forward berry flavors.
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.