Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This vineyard selection offers a compact and clean aromatic package that hits all the right notes without being overdone. Blackberry, cherry, vanilla and spice chime in on the palate and help drive the wine’s long, chewy finish.
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Wine Spectator
Beautiful and perfumed, with blackberry and black cherry aromas. Full-bodied and long, with chewy tannins. Very fresh and balanced.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2003 Brunello di Montalcino Altero offers attractive density as flowers, spices, ripe red fruit, chocolate and sweet toasted oak flow from the glass. The wine possesses outstanding nuance and complexity. In this vintage the use of smaller French oak barrels is somewhat penalizing as it accentuates the hard, unripe tannins that are already present in the fruit. As is often the case, the Altero presents a more immediate, rounder style than the regular bottling, but it also develops faster once opened.
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.