Winemaker Notes
Visually the wine displays a gorgeous ruby/garnet red. On the nose a very intense lingering cherry fruit and spice aroma, with gorgeous velvety tannins and a long finish.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Really powerful for the vintage, with plenty of ripe fruit and cedary new wood, yet balanced and pretty. Full-bodied, with polished tannins and a long finish. Needs a year or two to come completely together. Best after 2011.
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Wine Enthusiast
This pretty Brunello opens with a dark garnet color and segues to aromas of black cherry liqueur, blackberry, soy sauce, cola and dark spice. It’s a brooding, austere expression from Tuscany with polished tannins and silky texture.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Poggio il Castellare's 2005 Brunello di Montalcino is an attractive Brunello to drink over the next decade or so. Soft red fruit, spices, earthiness and herbs come together on a mid-weight frame. The intensity tapers off just a touch but on the finish, but the wine possesses lovely overall balance just the same. Anticipated maturity: 2010-2020.
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.