Winemaker Notes
The color is ruby red with a slight tendency to garnet. The nose 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
Really pretty fruit with pure berries and cherries with flowers. It’s medium-bodied with medium round tannins and a juicy finish. Shows a citrusy undertone to the whole thing with fresh acidity that runs long. Give it two or three years to come together. Better after 2025.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This wine is the equivalent of the village bottling from San Filippo. The 2019 Brunello di Montalcino Dei Comunali offers a 360-degree view onto Sangiovese with tangy forest fruit, star anise, white pepper and licorice. The oak aromas take on more prominence given this wine's baritone personality. It offers a solidly constructed finish with hints of roasted coconut or macadamia nut over a spicy mid-weight finish. It unfolds to nice balance.
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Wine Spectator
Hints of vanilla and toasty oak frame the cherry and berry flavors in this suave red. More about finesse than power despite a solid layer of dusty tannins, with iron and tobacco accents lingering on the finish. Best from 2026 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.