Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A seriously floral Brunello that combines rose petals and raspberry essence with more intense dried strawberries, chocolate shavings, herbs and cedar. The palate doesn't hold back but is still extremely well balanced and refined with tight, grainy tannins and a long, succulent finish. Drink in 2020.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Siro Pacenti's 2013 Brunello di Montalcino Pelagrilli offers a terrific package of intensity, freshness, firmness and complexity. It delivers generously on all fronts. The bouquet peels back to reveal wild cherry, rose hip, dried herb and toasted almond. The fruit tastes less ripe here (compared to wines from the southern parts of the appellation), and you do feel that acidic pinch on the close. This wine should flesh out and grow in volume with a few more years of bottle aging.
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Wine Spectator
The rich plum, cherry, leather and graphite aromas and flavors are matched by dense, mouthcoating tannins in this intense red. Balanced and long, with hints of menthol and earth. If you like beefy reds, this is for you. Best from 2023 through 2036.
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Wine Enthusiast
Underbrush, menthol, star anise and plum aromas mingle with a whiff of exotic spice. The aromas carry over to the austere, firmly structured palate along with espresso, toasted oak, sour cherry and licorice. It's still tight and primary, with firm acidity and youthfully bracing close-grained tannins that grip the finish. Drink after 2025.
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.