Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Compared to the lackluster base Brunello for the same vintage, the 1997 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva springs to life in spectacular style. This is a bold and brooding wine, but not over the top, with toasted oak, moist earth, leather, cola, licorice and anise seed all thrown in to the layered bouquet. Cherry liqueur and dried cranberry lingers in the back adding fruity tones and vigor. This is a generous and giving wine that should maintain this high level of performance for many more years. Give the wine up to four hours in the decanter. Drink: 2014-2030.
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Wine Spectator
Medium ruby-garnet, with plum, orange peel and flowers on the nose. Full-bodied, with a wonderfully silky palate. Long and caressing. Very beautiful. All in the right proportion.--1997 Italian blind retrospective.
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Wine Enthusiast
Loaded with pepper, hard spice and leather, but there's also plenty of bursting red fruit to this traditional Brunello. With every minute it's open the wine evolves: At first it's sweet and forward, but with time it turns earthy and leathery, and ultimately it gets very tight and brooding. Full acids, hammer-like tannins and major-league structure say hold for a minimum of six more years.
Cellar Selection
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.