Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Underbrush, camphor and new leather aromas get together with grilled herbs. Full-bodied and structured, it also shows restraint, featuring dried black cherry, licorice and tobacco alongside firm, fine-grained tannins.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Brunello di Montalcino opens to a saturated and shiny dark ruby color. This edition is loaded with black and purple fruits, such as blackberry preserves and plum. Those more robust tones are followed by spice, tar and campfire ash. The tannins are young (but not stemmy or bitter), and you'd be best served by letting this wine age and relax with more cellar aging. Il Poggione always makes some of the smoothest and most texturally enriched wines in the appellation, and this vintage is no exception.
Rating: 94+ -
Wine & Spirits
Rich flavors of dark cherry and plum glide in a smooth texture, gaining notes of dark chocolate and licorice as the wine sits in the glass. The tannins are firm and compact, like new leather, yet the generous fruit tones are already expressive, supported by a cool mineral layer and vivid acidity that keep the flavors fresh over several days. This is a refined and elegant Brunello from the warm 2017 vintage, with plenty of aging potential.
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Wine Spectator
Sweet, ripe cherry, blackberry and plum fruit flavors are framed by mineral, tobacco and thyme accents in this vibrant, balanced red. Make no mistake, there are ample tannins too, yet this still finds a nice equilibrium on the lingering finish.
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Decanter
Il Poggione started harvesting Brunello grapes on 1 September based on desired sugar and acidity levels. To curtail unripe tannins, winemaker Fabrizio Bindocci removed a small percentage of seeds at the beginning of fermentation, particularly from the earliest picked plots. The resulting wine is a heady mix of allspice, leather and prune plums. There is ample concentration on the palate and a zesty citrus note lends freshness. It's grippy but overall balanced, with just a touch of astringency nudging through. I’d give this another year to come together.
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James Suckling
Blackberry, blueberry, stone and floral aromas. Hints of cedar, too. Full-bodied and chewy with polish and focus. Dried berries and hints of meat. This shows the ripeness of the grapes. Chewy at the end. Needs time to soften. Better after 2023.
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.