Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Offers dried-mushroom, terracotta and light tarry notes, as well as a wealth of dried mixed berries. The palate has a savory edge with a core of sweet dried berries and sweetly ripe tannins. This has impressive poise and will drink well over the next decade.
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Wine Spectator
This is impressive for the vintage, with loads of crushed berries and spices, as well as hints of leather and flowers. Full-bodied, with soft and silky tannins and a long finish of sweet fruit. Rich and exciting. Better than the 2001. Best after 2010. 8,000 cases made.
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Wine Enthusiast
Tenuta Vitanza is a tiny world of its own that revolves within the tiny world of Montalcino. The winery is located at the furthest extreme of the winemaking zone and its owner, Guido Andretta is a wonderfully bi-cultural Italian-American. His wines are always delicious and 2004 is particularly so: It’s fresh and plump with enormous depth of fruit, spice and licorice aromas.
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.