Winemaker Notes
Vivid ruby red with a nose of fresh fruit and spices. Robust and persistent flavor.
Pair with red meats, game, roasts, salumi and aged cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Plum and cherry character with chocolate and walnuts. It’s full-bodied with powerful but polished and focused tannins. Tight and reserved, yet beautiful and impressive. Great structure. One for the cellar. Drink after 2024 and onwards.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Here's a wine I have not seen in a few years. The La Rasina 2015 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva Il Divasco maintains the wide-scale aromatic approach and the bold intensity that I remember from past vintages. It opens to dark concentration and shows a smoky, tarry bouquet with baked cherry and campfire ash. There are spicy notes as well, with overtones of mesquite, Spanish cedar and barbecue. This is a bold and contemporary Brunello from a warm vintage. It's a lot to take in. Give those tannins a few more years to integrate.
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.