Winemaker Notes
The wine displays an intense ruby red color with garnet hues and a wide bouquet featuring notes of black tea, raspberry jam, and citrus peel, with complex hints of coffee and leather on the finish. On the palate, it is soft, warm, and velvety, rich in small red berries, violets, and dried roses, with an elegant and harmonious structure, balanced taste, and long persistence that underscore its refined character.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
In the bottle with the white label, the La Gerla 2020 Brunello di Montalcino is a softly textured expression with dark berry fruit, dried cherry and toasted spice. All the typical Brunello elements are there, yet this vintages manages a softer approach with balance and silky tannins. As the wine opens in the glass, there is a moment of blue flower or iris. This vintage offers pleasure and accessibility.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Pouring a deep and youthful red color, the 2020 Brunello Di Montalcino is boisterous and fruity on the nose, with notes of grenadine, candied violets, pine, and hints of blue fruits shining through. Medium to full-bodied, it has good focus through the palate, with mouthwatering freshness in its notes of salty earth, also revealing ripe, angular tannins and good length. A very appealing Brunello with wonderful, refreshing structure, it may be even better than I'm giving credit it for from this early tasting. It's going to drink well over the coming 12-15 years.
Rating: 93+ -
Wine Spectator
This crisp red displays cherry, strawberry, iron and leafy, vegetal notes. Tightens up with solid yet refined tannins on the finish. With a few minutes of air, this comes together nicely, echoing the fruit on the finish, with a light dusting of tannins. Drink now through 2042.
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Decanter
Founded by Sergio Rossi in 1976, La Gerla has grown beyond its original holdings on the northern slope of Montalcino to include vineyards in the region’s southeast. The estate Brunello blends the two areas for a sweet yet savoury expression and it is attractively scented with wild berries, mint and a hint of leather. Mature yet vibrant fruit amply graces the palate. The surprisingly grippy tannins need a bit more time to integrate but they should grant a solid decade of endurance.
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James Suckling
A classic spicy Brunello focused on licorice, smoke and woodland aromas. The fruit character is a pallet of raspberries, pomegranates and black cherries. The attack is tense and firm, with chalky tannins and a medium body. It’s youthful and extracted, a bit austere in the clean, refreshing finish. Drinkable now, but best from 2026.
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Vinous
The 2020 Brunello di Montalcino is hauntingly dark, combining tobacco and wilted violets with brown spice and black cherries to form its richly inviting bouquet. It's soothingly round and racy in style with vibrant acidity and ripe wild berry fruits that slowly saturate toward the close. Hints of sour citrus enliven the senses even as fine tannins settle in, while the 2020 finishes long and spicy but only lightly structured.
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.