Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Perfumed, focused and loaded with energy, this radiant red boasts enticing scents of iris, rose, crushed mint and wild berry. Boasting ethereal elegance as well as intensity and flavor, the chiseled palate has great fruit purity, delivering juicy red cherry, spiced cranberry, star anise and white pepper. Noble tannins and bright acidity provide balance and an ageworthy framework. Drink 2024– 2046. Cellar Selection.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2016 Brunello di Montalcino is highly aromatic with tart cherry fruit, medicinal herbs, dried roses and cedar. The palate is ripe upfront with sweet raspberry, fresh blood orange, and saline minerality with energetic acidity, and fine-grained tannins. The 2016 is vibrant and transparent with classic elegance. Hold for 3-5 years and drink 2025-2036.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Out of the gate, the Il Marroneto 2016 Brunello di Montalcino shows exciting purity and red fruit intensity. Compared to the Madonna delle Grazie, this wine has an ever-more lifted quality to the bouquet, whereas the Madonna has a firmer underlying texture that bodes well for longer aging. The character here is fresh, lively, youthful and vibrant. In fact, I would recommend drinking this wine while all those elements are still intact. The bouquet is crazy fun to describe: I get whiffs of black cherry, macchia mediterranea (which is not too different from what we call chaparral in California), peppercorn, dried cranberry and even a whiff of something that reminded me of the delicious rosemary herb mix you stuff inside roast porchetta. The base of the wine is light, almost weightless, but its structure and firmness do eventually catch up on the long finish.
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Decanter
The 2016 is a fine rendition of the estate's Brunello in a fine year overall. It was 'a very easy vintage,' according to Alessandro, with plenty of sunshine as well as rain at all the right times. The sweet cherry, raspberry and creamy scents lead to a chewy yet elegant palate with grippy, textural tannins. Juicy red fruits are joined on the mid-palate by a tangy, lip-smacking minerality and then a long finish bursting with balsamic freshness.
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.