Winemaker Notes
The 2013 Palazzo Brunello di Montalcino has an intense ruby red color, which tends towards garnet with age. Scented, high-toned aromas of red berries, sweet spices and flowers, with a note of candied red cherry emerging with air. Fine-grained and floral, offering excellent energy and lift in the mouth, and attractive inner-mouth perfume to its red berry flavors. Finishes clean and persistent, with smooth tannins.
This wine is ideal with roasted or grilled meats, hearty pasta dishes and seasoned cheese.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Extremely fresh and linear style to this with dark fruits of cherry and berry. Some flower and wood. Full body, fine and silky tannins and a long and flavorful finish. Very structured. Better than 2012. Best ever?
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Wine Enthusiast
Aromas of wild berry, forest floor and a whiff of thyme lift out of the glass. The concentrated palate offers dried black cherry, chewing tobacco and star anise alongside taut, fine-grained tannins.
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.