Winemaker Notes
Ruby red tending to light burgundy red.The bouquet reminds of intense graphite, rust, morello cherry dipped in chocolate, mint, dry hay, violet in the nose. Taste satisfies the olfactory pleasure lavishing sensations of black truffle, violet, liquorice and plum. Wine with a rich alcoholic content and as much freshness with wide tannin, initially velvety and then ending a bit dry, as fully characterised by the vine. The wine dithers between alcohol and freshness but at the end freshness prevails. Medium-bodied, with a long aromatic persistence. Liquorice and fresh plum aftertaste.
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
Enticing aromas of black cherries, dark mushrooms, bark and dried flowers, such as roses and honeysuckle. It’s full-bodied, layered and chewy with loads of cherry, plum and orange peel on the palate. Chewy finish with some bitter lemon and smoke at the end. Best ever? Give it four or five years to soften.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
I have really enjoyed these latest releases from La Fortuna from the past few years. The 2016 Brunello di Montalcino (with 35,000 bottles produced) opens to a dark ruby or garnet appearance and shows impressive aromatic intensity. With that intensity comes sharpness and precision. The aromas unfold quickly to display candied fruit, cocktail cherry, licorice, cola and dark spice. This is a frank and naked expression of Sangiovese from an excellent vintage.
-
Jeb Dunnuck
The 2016 Brunello has aromatics of fresh leather, dried cherry, and anise. The palate is ripe with candied cherry lozenge, tomato leaf, and dusty earth, with angular and drying tannin and tangy acidity.
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.