Winemaker Notes
Colour ruby red garnet, penetrating at nose with fruit and scents of vanilla. Robust and armonic in mouth, bit tannic. We produce it only in the best vintages.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This has a riper-fruit nose with rich plums and hints of chocolate, as well as graphite and cedary nuances. The palate has ample ripe cherries and plums with a fine, lithe tannin shape that delivers plenty of plum and cassis flavor. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Mocali’s 2013 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva is a fruit-forward wine with pronounced cherry, plum and red fruit tones. You might recognize candied raspberry or cough drop flavors as well. The bouquet offers good complexity with shades of spice, cured meat and white pepper that filter in as the wine settles in the glass. There is a distinct touch of sweetness, just a flash, that adds more weight and texture to the palate. The wine shows nicely integrated tannins. Production was capped at 10,000 bottles.
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.