Winemaker Notes
It goes well with roast Chianina beef, Fiorentina steak, game stews,but also with first courses with game ragout, which are the natural accompaniment to this wine, which requires equally noble flavors.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A full-bodied red with cherry, walnut and coffee undertones. It’s full and complete with beautiful intensity and a focused tannin structure. Very tight and intense. Perhaps the best ever. Better after 2025.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Notes of black cherry fruit, sassafras, dried thyme, and baked earth. Black cherry lozenge fills the midpalate, with persistent tannin and balanced acid. The 2016 Brunello has grounding and powerful structure, with more finesse and lift than the 2015, which will be a wine to cellar or drink over the next 15 years. 2023-2036.
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Wine Enthusiast
A camphor aroma joins new leather, underbrush and pipe tobacco in this classically crafted Brunello. Youthfully austere and firmly structured, the palate delivers dried cherry, licorice and grilled porcini set against a tannic backbone. It's still young but balanced by fresh acidity. Give it plenty of time to come around. Drink 2026–2036.
Cellar Selection -
Wine & Spirits
This midweight wine unfolds with flavors of macerated cherries and blackberries laced with notes of tobacco leaf and dried thyme. The wine takes on notes of licorice and subtle spice with air, the flavors buoyed by lively acidity that keeps the fruit tones fresh and taut.
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.