Winemaker Notes
The wine's color is ruby red with garnet hues.
The nose is elegant, calibrated and complex with notes of cherry, raspberry, burnt wood, and licorice.
It impetuously invades the mouth with full body and seamless tannins and acidity. The finish is long and shows an excellent freshness that balances the alcohol that is naturally present and connected to the southern exposure of the estate's vineyards.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2006 Brunello di Montalcino is another superb Brunello from Il Poggione. The ripeness of the vintage meets a classic sense of structure as this bold, full-bodied wine takes shape in the glass. The 2006 doesn’t have the elegance or finesse of the 2004, instead it offers a decidedly more virile, masculine expression of Sangiovese. Dark cherries, tobacco, smoke and underbrush wrap around a wall of tannin as the finish builds to a majestic close. Il Poggione’s Brunello remains one of the best values in fine, cellar-worthy wine. Anticipated maturity: 2016-2036.
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Wine Enthusiast
Thanks to 36 months of careful oak aging, this hearty Brunello opens with a dark, inky color, deep extraction and intense aromas of black cherry, chocolate, rum cake, cinnamon, mesquite and wet stone. Pair it with hand-made pasta and shaved black truffles.
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Wine Spectator
A fresh, elegant style, featuring cherry, blackberry and spice aromas and flavors, with a vibrant structure and well-integrated tannins. This hangs together beautifully through the long finish, which echoes fruit and tobacco. Best from 2013 through 2025.
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.