Winemaker Notes
The color is ruby red with a slight tendency to garnet. The perfume is intense and complex, spicy, with dominant notes of Amarena cherry. The olfactory phase continues on the palate. The flavor is full, harmonious and persistent, with dense and silky tannins.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
The transparency of fruit to this wine is so pretty with sliced black cherries and orange peel. Fresh and aromatic. Full body. Tight and polished with ultra-fine tannins and an intense and focused finish. A beauty. Drink after 2022.
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Wine Spectator
Fruity and elegant, with cherry, strawberry, floral and mineral notes plying the lacy texture. Shows terrific balance and complexity. There is no shortage of structure and the finish blazes a path to glory. Best from 2022 through 2042.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The San Filippo 2015 Brunello di Montalcino walks across the palate with light and carefree footsteps. The wine is crisp and lean with classic Sangiovese aromas of wild berry fruit, forest floor, bitter almond and pressed blue violets. The wine remains mild mannered in the mouth with silky tannins and a pretty spot of freshness on the close. With this wine, you get an immediate and accessible Brunello that could be great in the near term on your local restaurant list.
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.