Winemaker Notes
Complex and structured. Intense red fruits into strawberry jam notes with lasting finish and oak influence.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Perfumed with cherries, berries and flowers. It’s medium-bodied with a ripe-fruit center-palate and praline, nut and nougat undertones. Rich and delicious, yet it remains intense and focused. Flavorful at the end. Drinkable now, but better in 2025 and onwards.
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Wine Enthusiast
Inviting aromas of wild berries, baking spice, new leather and charcuterie come to the forefront. Full-bodied and elegantly structured, the smooth palate features dried cherry, baked plum, vanilla and mocha framed in fine-grained tannins. Drink 2024–2031.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The La Gerla 2016 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva gli Angeli is polished and tightly knit with lots of silky inner shine. The fruit shows good primary intensity with dried cherry and cassis, but this Riserva also accommodates some tertiary or aged aromas of spice, leather and tar. Earthy tones, cola and wild rose are folded into this fresh and elegant Sangiovese. There are some smoky oaky tones that are a little aggressive at first, but they do largely subside.
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Wine Spectator
This tightly woven red features notes of milk chocolate and spicy oak wrapped around cherry and currant fruit. Shuts down on the finish now, yet there is vibrant fruit and length. 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.