Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Red-berry, blue-flower and oak-driven aromas mingle together in the glass. The linear, elegantly structured palate offers cranberry, star anise and coffee bean alongside polished, fine-grained tannins. Fresh acidity keeps it balanced.
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Wine Spectator
Well-marked by toasty, vanilla-tinged oak notes, this powerful red is dense and almost chunky. Plum, black cherry and blackberry fruit lurks in the background and will require a few years to find expression. Best from 2022 through 2033.
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.
This significant Tuscan village—not to be confused with the red grape of the same name widely grown in Abruzzo and the Marche regions—was home to one of the first four Italian DOCGs granted in 1980.
Based on the Sangiovese grape (here called Prugnolo Gentile), the village’s prized wine called Vino Nobile di Montepulciano ranks stylistically in between Chianti Classico, for its finesse, and Brunello di Montalcino for its power. With a deep ruby color, heavy concentration and a firm structure given by the village's heavy, cool clay soils, most Vino Nobile di Montepulciano will demand some bottle age.