Winemaker Notes
Fresh on the palate with notes of crunchy cherry, orange peel, licorice, wild herbs and crushed stone. Terrific balance and length.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The Le Ragnaie V.V., Vigna Vecchia, is sourced from their highest elevation site of their oldest vines planted in 1968. The aromatics are lifted with pine, bright cherry fruit, rosehip, and orange zest. Of the single vineyards, it has the most tension-packed structure, with angular tannins and linear drive. The palate is fresh with crisp cherry fruit, licorice, and a stony mineral feel. This is a wine that certainly needs time to unfold and express its character.
Rating: 98+
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Le Ragnaie farms some of the highest-elevation vineyards in the appellation, and this wine gets its fruit from the site that is the highest of all. The 2016 Brunello di Montalcino Ragnaie V. V. offers an extremely chiseled and sharp bouquet as a result. Wild berry, blue flower, balsam herb and crushed stone emerge with intensity. The tannins are firm and tight, and given those high altitudes, the wine's extra crispness comes as no surprise. The fruit is harvested from old vines, 60 years old or more.
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Wine & Spirits
At some 2,000 feet above sea level, Campinoti’s Le Ragnaie vineyard is home to some of Montalcino’s highest-elevation Brunello vines. He makes his Brunello V.V. with fruit from vines planted in the late 1960s, and it is typically the most vertical and lifted of Le Rag-naie’s single-vineyard Brunellos. Those aspects stand out in the 2016 growing season, with fresh floral scents and bright red cherry and berry tones. The cool, crisp flavors are densely packed yet seemingly weightless, driven by vibrant acid-ity that makes the wine so appealing now. This will sustain its freshness while gaining complex-ity over the next decade.
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Wine Spectator
There's pure cherry fruit at the heart of this red, surrounded by floral, iron, earth, tobacco and wild herb notes. Firmly structured, this is constantly changing as it reveals its layers of flavor. Shows terrific balance, focus and length. Best from 2024 through 2045.
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James Suckling
Beautifully ripened sangiovese here with cherries, orange peel and flowers. It’s so perfumed. Full-bodied, very tight and reserved with fine, intense tannins and a long, linear finish. Really takes you deep and long into the center of the wine.
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.