Winemaker Notes
100% Sangiovese from the iron-rich soils of Castelnuovo dell’Abate.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Offers forthcoming aromas and flavors of blackberry, black currant, licorice, tobacco and vanilla backed by vivid acidity and dusty tannins. This has enough fruit and structure to absorb the oakiness over time, is balanced overall and is poised for a promising future. Best from 2026
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Jeb Dunnuck
A dark red brick color, the 2016 Brunello Di Montalcino Riserva boasts expressive aromas of red fruits, including baked red cherries, balsamic herbs, truffles, and forest floor. It's fresh and compact on the palate, with a lot of focus, offering ripe tannins and even acidity that has a clean and refreshing feel. It's very seamless wine throughout and closes with a very long and focused finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva is a terrific wine: bold, well-defined, powerful and balanced. The bouquet shows black cherry, cassis, earth, leather and dried roses. The palate offers soft fruit flavors supported by firm oak tannins. Coming back to the bottle 24 hours later, I found impressive integration and smoothness that took away from that alcohol heat.
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James Suckling
This is really polished and refined, yet remains polished and beautiful, with cherries and berries, as well as light hazelnut and walnut undertones. Compact and silky. Drink after 2024, but already so attractive.
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.