Winemaker Notes
Ideal with red and white roast meats, poultry, game and aged cheese.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2012 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva Poggio Abate flaunts a decidedly opulent and lavish personality. The wine is dark and heavy in appearance, with inky colors of black and ruby red. The bouquet opens to ripe tones of cherry or blackberry marmalade with pretty veins of spice and licorice woven deep within its fabric. The ripeness is very apparent (almost too much so), but the wine also offers an elegant mouthfeel that puts its various elements back into balance.
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James Suckling
Some very rich, creamy oak and spice aromas with a big hit of dark fruits and rich ripe plum and red cherry flavors. Plum cakes, lots of spices and drive too. A much riper style.
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Wine & Spirits
La Poderina’s riserva shows depth and concentration, mingling notes of dried cherry and cassis with fresher fruit flavors. The wine aged for 15 months in French oak tonneaux and an equal amount of time in large Slavonian casks, picking up some vanilla and sweet spice accents that complement the rich fruit flavors. It takes a warm and savory turn on the finish, even as the spice notes linger.
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.