Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A savory Vino Nobile with cinnamon spices, ink, iron, orange peel and earthy berries. Tight and full-bodied, with chewy tannins and a nicely austere, almost rustic finish. From organically grown grapes. Give it two more years. Better in 2025.
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Wine Enthusiast
Wild berry, pipe tobacco and blue flower aromas waft out of the glass. Juicy and polished, the linear palate offers tart pomegranate, orange zest and star anise alongside bright acidity and lithe tannins before closing on a hint of coffee bean.
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Wine Spectator
Rich and round, exhibiting plum, black cherry, wild rosemary, thyme and mineral flavors. Mellowing, yet still flexes some tannic clout on the finish. Drink now through 2032.
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.
This significant Tuscan village—not to be confused with the red grape of the same name widely grown in Abruzzo and the Marche regions—was home to one of the first four Italian DOCGs granted in 1980.
Based on the Sangiovese grape (here called Prugnolo Gentile), the village’s prized wine called Vino Nobile di Montepulciano ranks stylistically in between Chianti Classico, for its finesse, and Brunello di Montalcino for its power. With a deep ruby color, heavy concentration and a firm structure given by the village's heavy, cool clay soils, most Vino Nobile di Montepulciano will demand some bottle age.