Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Ruby/garnet hue. Ripe and concentrated blue and berry fruit aromas with notes of spice, cocoa and leather. Palate is dense and ripe but with lovely acidity that lifts the red cherry and very flinty flavors.
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James Suckling
A beautiful red with dried-berry, light meat and leaf character. Full body with integrated tannins and a fresh finish. This estate always makes outstanding wines. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2009 Brunello di Montalcino is a supple and immediately inviting Brunello that is packed tight with ripe fruit and jammy background notes of sun-drenched raspberry and strawberry.
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Wine Enthusiast
This forward Brunello opens with a fruit and spice fragrance of ripe black berries, cinnamon and hot red pepper. The dense palate delivers fleshy black cherry, ripe black raspberry, black pepper and cake spices alongside dusty tannins.
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.