Winemaker Notes
Located on the southeastern slope, Poggio al Granchio is a succulent, dense Brunello with the typical iron and blood-rich meat notes of Sangiovese. It has distinctive overtones of red and dark fruit, cherry, redcurrant, blackberry, myrtle and peach leaves, with a sapid, mineral finish.
Professional Ratings
-
Jeb Dunnuck
Moving to the fullest expression in this tasting, the 2018 Brunello Di Montalcino Poggio Al Granchio is generous with black cherry, a darker mineral earth profile, wet asphalt, and crushed violets. It is full and beautifully pure on the palate, with notes of kirsch, raspberry liqueur, turned soil, and cedar, and is generous with fruit all the way through, with ripe yet fine tannins. It amplifies the style with ease and impressive skill and is another outstanding wine to drink 2025-2045.
-
Wine Enthusiast
The savory nose features aromas of hot tar, soil, carpaccio and lead, with a fruit undertone of cherries and plums providing balance. The palate leans into those sweeter, juicier elements, while acid fizzes around polished, yet grippy tannins.
-
James Suckling
Fresh nose with savory berries, dried herbs, smoked tarragon and nutmeg. Weighty and broad for the vintage. Dusty tannins come together at the end, giving a caressing grip to the finish. Better from 2024.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Val di Suga 2018 Brunello di Montalcino Poggio al Granchio (with 10,000 bottles made) opens to a pretty dark appearance and a much brighter quality of fruit (compared to Vigna del Lago) with plump cherry, black-currant and dark plum. Fruit comes from a higher elevation site at 450 meters above sea level, and this might make the difference. The wine is rather lean in terms of mouthfeel, with dusty tannins and chalky mineral sensations. Its structure is soft, generally speaking, and the wine is ready to go straight out of the gate.
-
Wine & Spirits
From a vineyard in Montalcino’s southeastern sector, this poised and harmonious wine unfolds with high-toned red cherry and berry flavors limned with notes of licorice and menthol. It maintains good freshness over several days, with pliant tannins that provide immediate appeal, allowing the pure red fruit tones full expression
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.