Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
The 2019 Brunello di Montalcino wafts up with a dark and dusty bouquet as dried flowers and crushed stone give way to red currants. It’s soft textured with tactile mineral tones up front, adding a crunchy character to the tart wild berry fruits within. The 2019 finishes long and staining, leaving a tinge of balsamic spice and a liquid stone sensation that mellows over a bed of fine tannins. This is a brighter style for Mocali, and I like it quite a bit.
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Wine Spectator
Though tightly wound, there's a core of concentrated cherry and plum to this red, along with accents of earth, tobacco and rosemary. Fresh and balanced, leaving a layer of fine tannins on the extended finish. Best from 2027 through 2042. 4,200 cases made, 3,000 cases imported.
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James Suckling
Starts with black cherries, violets and bark, followed by a hint of crushed rock. Medium-bodied with stringent tannins. Still tight and a little lean now, this needs more time to soften. Better after 2025.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This is a richly textured Sangiovese with sweet plum, cooked cherry, spice and crème de cassis. The Mocali 2019 Brunello di Montalcino is a wine focused mostly on texture and mouthfeel. It imparts nice weight to the palate with fine, chalky tannins.
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Wine Enthusiast
The nose is perfumed and savory, with new leather, peonies, cherry blossom, rose water candy and bergamot. The palate is juicy with strawberries and cherries, and then tangy citrus mingles with a clean, floral component. The tannins and acidity are substantial but restrained.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The ruby/garnet 2019 Brunello Di Montalcino is open and inviting, with notes of baked red cherries, pie spices, nutmeg, and balsamic. Medium-bodied, it’s appealing and approachable, with a supple texture up front, a refreshing, clean lift, and fine tannins coming through on the finish. It’s a very charming Brunello that’s widely distributed and is a great introduction.
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.