Winemaker Notes
Pairs well with pasta and rice dishes, pies, vegetable dishes, red and white meat dishes.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A pretty Rosso di Montalcino that shows dark cherries, spices and dried herbs. Medium body, fine tannins and a bright finish. Drink now.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Rosso di Montalcino is a simple and straightforward wine that goes into wood for six months and into bottle for another four months before it hits the market. You get great value with a wine like this, which offers pristine primary fruit followed by grilled herb and moist potting soil. In all, you get all the best qualities of stripped down Sangiovese produced in a warm vintage. However, don't underestimate the wine's structure, because you do feel those integrated tannins at the back. The fruit is cheerful and bright. Bottle production is 24,800 units strong.
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Decanter
Precise and fresh, driven by sweet red fruits with a mineral edge. Pretty wine, with a long and savoury finish.
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.