Winemaker Notes
Intense ruby verging on garnet. Soft, warm and velvety, harmonic, rich in fruits and persistent in the mouth. Intense, ethereal melting into scents of sweet violet and iris, with hints of spices such as tobacco, cinnamon and leather.
Great food pairings include red meats, preferably wild game; to serve, store sideways at room temperature at least 24 hours beforehand, cork two hours in advance, decant and serve in decanter.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2017 Brunello Di Montalcino is ripe with the musky cologne of worn leather, red cherry liqueur, macerated strawberry, and damp earth. Up front, it is generous with silky fruit and medium bodied, with ripe red plum, sweet balsamic, sanguine earth, and blood orange. It is open-knit now and will be wonderful drinking over the next 10 or so years. Best After 2023
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James Suckling
A fresher 2017 with cherry, mushroom and stone aromas and flavors. Medium body. Firm, lively yet fine-grained tannins. Bright finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The La Gerla 2017 Brunello di Montalcino is silky and polished, offering a nice perspective on a vintage that was not always easy to navigate. This wine manages smooth integration with none of the rougher spots that can sometimes occur in hot and dry growing seasons. The bouquet shows nuanced detail with wild berry, forest floor, grilled herb and wild rose. The wine is firm on the palate with tight stemmy tannins.
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Wine Enthusiast
Elegantly structured, this offers balsamic aromas of camphor that mingle with new leather, forest floor and blue flower. The taut, polished palate features mature Marasca cherry, blood orange and star anise before closing on a hint of mocha. Fine-grained tannins provide support. Drink 2024–2029.
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Wine Spectator
Round, evoking plum, dried cherry and earth flavors framed by toasty spice accents. This starts out polished before the tightly-wound, refined tannins emerge. Best from 2025.
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.