Winemaker Notes
Pairs best with grilled and roasted red meats, game, aged cheeses. Wine for important occasion.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Fabulous aromas of blackberries, Chinese mushrooms, violets and stones. A touch of toasted oak, too. Full body and powerful tannins, yet this remains polished and balanced. Seamless and endless finish. Such great depth and complexity. Needs two or three years more of bottle age. Open in 2020.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2010 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva is a dark, brooding and powerful wine. It shows immediate richness and evident complexity with spice, tobacco, cured meat and dried blackberry or plum. This a gorgeous wine that is only at the beginning of a long aging evolution. This wine is absolutely impeccable on all levels. It delivers stunning intensity, power, integrity and balance. The aromatic momentum continues to grow and becomes steadily more expansive and complete as the wine takes on more air in the glass. I was absolutely blown away by this Riserva. It confirms my conviction that Andrea Cortonesi is one of Brunello's most talented winemakers. I suggest waiting five years or more before opening this bottle.
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Wine Spectator
Saturated with cherry, black currant and floral notes, this red evokes licorice, wild herb and stone accents. Solidly built yet refined, with a Burgundian quality common to many 2010 Riservas. Shows superb balance and extraordinary length. Best from 2018 through 2035.
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Wine Enthusiast
There's a lot to like on this bold, fragrant wine, starting with aromas of leather, scorched earth, grilled herb and ripe black-skinned fruit. The hearty palate offers mouthfuls of juicy black cherry, raspberry jam, licorice, vanilla and cinnamon framed in robust, velvety tannins. The fruit richness seamlessly offsets the hefty abv. Drink 2018–2025.
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.