Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Fascinating aromas of dried flowers, sandalwood, cedar and plums. Full body, ultra-fine tannins and a long, long finish. Gloriously complex and savory. Dusty texture. Just makes you want to drink it.
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Wine Spectator
A touch of new oak adds spice to the mix in this intense red. Cherry, strawberry, floral and mineral flavors pick up leather, tobacco and tea accents as this culminates on the lingering, spice-tinged aftertaste. Best from 2018 through 2032.
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Wine Enthusiast
Toasted oak, coffee, scorched earth, baked plum and a whisper of exotic spice lead the way. The chewy, full-bodied palate offers mature black cherry, raspberry compote, anise and espresso alongside fresh acidity and fine-grained tannins that lend restraint and finesse.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The La Fortuna 2010 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva is a balanced and forthcoming wine that offers a bright core of berry fruit that is evenly offset by spicy notes of allspice and cardamom seed. The wine boasts a great sense of balance throughout with savory tones of tobacco and cured meat that underline its recent aging evolution. This Riserva should promise a solid ten-year drinking window.
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.