Winemaker Notes
Pair with pasta with meat sauce, roasted, grilled meats and medium strength cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A nicely spicy Rosso di Montalcino with cloves, dried flowers, sour cherries and orange peel on the nose. Creamy and medium- to full-bodied, with chalky tannin's and a ripe, chocolaty finish. Drink or hold.
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Wine & Spirits
This is a robust and structured Rosso, its dark cherry flavors riding on firm, new-leather tannins as the wine gains notes of warm spice and graphite. Decant it to coax out the juicy red fruit tones.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Dark fruited and flush with sweet floral perfume, the 2021 Rosso Di Montalcino is ripe with boysenberry, black raspberry, pine sap, and balsamic. A bit of varnish on the opening may need some time to settle down. It has a silky and satin-like texture, with black cherry cola, mocha, and purple flowers, and the wine is medium to full-bodied, open, and inviting. Drink 2023-2038.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Il Poggione 2021 Rosso di Montalcino (with 200,000 bottles made) offers medium fruit weight with dark cherry, wild plum and savory spice. This is a terrific vintage with moderate summer temperatures and a long growing season that agrees very much with Sangiovese, a grape that takes its time to ripen and develop complexity. This Rosso also reveals an especially spicy character with nutmeg and cinnamon that seems to come from the skins of the grape as much as it may come from 12 months in oak.
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Wine Spectator
A juicy red, with leather and underbrush accents framing smoky cherry, plum and mineral flavors. Well-structured and long, with a solid grip of tannins on the lingering aftertaste. Offers fine intensity.
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.