Winemaker Notes
Structured, elegant, with very fine tannins and a great complexity. Vineyards over 35 years of age, absolute respect for the land and a great experience are essential to obtain a wine with these characteristics. It is not filtered and reaches its maximum expression after a few years of aging.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
The nose is decadent but not overdone with plum liqueur, Christmas cake, cedar, Chinese spices, licorice, tea leaves, tar and hot stones. Full and very dense with mouth-coating tannins but also attractive fresh fruit, pretty acidity and a long finish. Rather chewy and needs time, but a beautiful follow-up to the 2012.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Showing more oak definition, texture and overall fruity richness, the 2013 Brunello di Montalcino Vecchie Vigne benefits from the concentration and complexity you get with old vines. The wine wraps thickly over the palate, imparting luscious aromas of dried cherry, exotic spice, pressed rose and scorched earth along the way. This is a wine for the cellar. The bouquet has a lot to give, but this will require some extra time. All the elements are there for an excellent aging future. Some 27,000 bottles were produced.
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Vinous
The 2013 Brunello di Montalcino Vecchie Vigne is remarkably pretty, with a bright bouquet of rose petals, ground clove, dusty earth and wild strawberry. It is round and soothingly soft-textured, with a wave of saline minerals to balance as brisk acidity excites its tart wild berry fruit. This wine reverberates with zesty tension, long and intense, with edgy tannins and a saturation of primary concentration that lingers. The future is very bright, as the 2013 is just starting to come out of its shell. Rating: 95+
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Wine Enthusiast
Forest floor, toasted oak, dark spice, new leather and tobacco aromas fill the glass along with a whiff of eucalyptus. The firmly structured concentrated palate shows power and finesse, offering dried black cherry, star anise, coffee bean and grilled sage alongside fresh acidity and close-grained tannins. It's still youthfully austere and will benefit with several more years spent in the cellar. Drink 2023–2033.
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Wine Spectator
Bright and bursting with cherry, currant and berry flavors, this also has a tannic edge, along with tobacco and leafy underbrush notes. The two camps need to reach some sort of détente before this really sings. Best from 2022 through 2035.
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.