Winemaker Notes
Pair with roasted lamb and aged cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Nardi family's 2010 Brunello di Montalcino Vigneto Manachiara opens to rich saturation and concentration followed by a full bouquet of generous spice and dark fruit. Dark plum, prune, blackberry and cassis all emerge on the nose to be followed quickly by spice, cola, tar and licorice. This is an intense Brunello to the nth degree. Sweet oak tannins wrap thickly over the palate and remind you that the wine needs a few more years of bottle aging.
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Wine Enthusiast
Aromas of toasted oak, berry, spearmint and stewed plum lead the nose on this concentrated wine. The dense palate offers mature plum, fleshy black cherry, vanilla and licorice alongside assertive tannins that need to unwind. Drink after 2018.
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.