Winemaker Notes
Very intense fragrances and freshness. The lively fruit notes unfold the intense spicy aroma. Austere and hot tempered taste, savory finish, soft, long lasting and well balance tannins will accompany this vintage for decades to come.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
On steep slopes in the southeast of Montalcino, Poggio di Sotto's vineyards are cooled by breezes coming off the nearby Monte Amiata. The Brunello is crafted from plots that range in altitude from 200 to 450 metres. Fermentations are spontaneous, maceration lasts one month and ageing is in 30-hectolitre Slavonian oak casks. This demonstrates the generosity of the vintage but is still fresh and graceful. Sweet fennel, underbrush and thyme blossoms give intricacy to pure red cherry fruit. Abundant chalky tannins build stealthily across the palate and provide a welcome dimension of texture, while Sangiovese's appetising juiciness shines through.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Poggio di Sotto 2015 Brunello di Montalcino is a vintage that could have played out quite differently but was ultimately saved by underground water reserves leftover from the previous year's abundant rainfall. The 2015 growing season was quite hot, resulting in big-boned wines across the appellation, but not here. Thanks to fruit-thinning, earlier harvest times and other important farming decisions, this wine offers impressive finesse and length. It shows dark fruit, underbrush and even a hint of wild mushroom.
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James Suckling
There’s a real Burgundian feel here to the sour cherries, five spice, citrus, nutmeg and fresh oregnano. The tannins have a beautiful, porcelain-like feel; the acidity cuts a wide and long shape. Delicate, floral and refined. All about grace and elegance. Drink from 2021.
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Wine Enthusiast
Delicately scented, this offers alluring aromas of red woodland berry, camphor and a whiff of rosemary in bloom. It's elegant to the point of being ethereal, with an almost gossamer-like texture featuring taut silky tannins that lithely support sour cherry, pomegranate and star anise. Bright acidity keeps it fresh and light on its feet before it finishes on a drying note evoking raw coffee bean.
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Wine Spectator
Wild herb, cherry, iron and tobacco flavors mark this dense, compact red. Stiff, dusty tannins form a defensive finish, yet there is ample ripe fruit up front. Best from 2023 through 2040.
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.