Brunello di Montalcino

All Brunello hails from the region of Montalcino, but there is no single style of Brunello. And the best way to understand this is an interesting wine to explore the styles of individual vineyards.

The wine Brunello di Montalcino is clear to the consumer, because it is made from only one grape variety – Sangiovese, or the “Brunello” as it is called in this hilly area in the South-West of Tuscany.

But to describe a typical wine from Brunello impossible. After about 30-35% of Brunello made from grapes from cooler areas to the North of the city, while 65-70% from the South, which usually much warmer. The grapes are from the North, as a rule, gives a confident, mouth-watering, with more pale wine. Southern vines is a wine with an intense colour and overt fruitiness, not devoid of spice.

Complicating the matter is that manufacturers can mix grapes from both sides to even out the style and get more average taste.

To share or not to share Montalcino?

The most high-profile disputes in Montalcino are conducted around the question: whether it is necessary to divide the region into sub-areas in order to clearly delineate different Brunello for the consumer? Zoning, most likely, would have passed along the boundaries of the villages included in the Montalcino region.

Traditionalists fear that the vineyards on the less valuable territories – read low-lying, more clayey soils, such as Torrenieri, you’ll get negativity from the press, and then from the market.

Others such as Francesco Marone Cinzano of Col d’orcia – object: “the ability to clearly separate zones of Montalcino is an advantage for a buyer – look for the Burgundy”.

Or at least the largest producer in Montalcino – Val di Suga. He’s already bottled his 55 hectares of Brunello as three separate vineyard: Vigna del Lago winery, on the North-East of the city, the toughest of the three wines; a more elegant Vigna Spuntali – 16 km to South-West; and the smoothest of the three – Poggio al Granchio – in the same 16 km to the South-East. All three are quite recognizable Brunello, thus, very different from each other. This may be an argument in favor of the fact that the differences of the terroir of Brunello unite the region rather than divide it.

I believe that the division into zones one way or another will happen, because there is a desire to add the wines of Brunello customer value, that is to say, put it in blue chips, positioning the region as a gastronomic centre with white truffle, ROE deer, wild boar, olive oil, sheep cheese, honey and other local specialities.

In the meantime, the most logical way in the knowledge of the diversity of the wines of Montalcino, I think, is familiarity with the Brunello of individual farms in the region.

Approximately 14% (260-320 ha) Brunello anyway is bottled with an indication of the vineyard: either from the official list of single vineyard (vigna), or geographically – recognizable historic areas (toponimo).

For those, or for other there are no legal limits in size. However, the wine labeled “vigna” must be from vineyards from the list approved by the Consortium of Brunello wine Producers.

Individual vineyards: how it all began

The first wines appeared in the mid-1970s. It was Montosoli from Caparzo (Caparzo) and Vigna La Casa from Altesino (Altesino). Both with the best of the land of Montalcino, with a small hill Near (Montosoli) in the North of Montalcino.

However, Caparzo and Altesino not managed to grab the best plots of Near, which fell to the family of Nello Baricci in 1955м. Baricci is the only farm in Montalcino with vineyard located entirely in the territory of Near.

The vines of Baricci (Baricci) an ideal South-Eastern exposure and the altitude (270m) – the “Holy place” for the Brunello, which is obtained here, ripe, floral, aromatic and perfectly drinkable. Baricci calling their Brunello ‘Colombaio Montosoli’, the name of the farm, which he when-that together with the vineyard. This wine is a good starting point for comparison terroir of Brunello.

Other notable samples of Brunello with specific vineyards appeared in 1980, with a cumulative expansion of Montalcino’s wines. Among them, Vigna del Fiore from Fattoria dei Barbi, in 1981, Poggio al Vento from Col d’orcia in ’82m.

Both with warmer southern region of Montalcino, but with cool sites at a height of over 350m. They resisted the temptation to bring an elegant maturity to sacrifice fashionable style wines from overripe grapes, which became a trend in Montalcino, as elsewhere, since about the 1990s.

If you want to trace the history of “classic Brunello through the years” – that Vigna del Fiore and Poggio al Vento, you can take a reference among the wines from specific vineyards.

The continuation of the boom Brunello

The steady rise of new Brunello wines single vineyard continued during the boom of the 1990s. Of the most notable: debut in 1993m Mastrojanni wine Schiena d’asino, and wine of the Brunello with the windy plateau above the village of Castelnuovo del abate (Castelnuovo Dell’abate) in the South of Montalcino.

Castelnuovo Dell’abate – the hottest sub-zone of Montalcino. On the one hand it’s protected from the cold Eastern winds by the extinct volcano of Monte Amiata and on the other by the hot salty Mediterranean winds.

This means that the wines from Castelnuovo can be more dark, rich and heady unusual, compared to wines from the North of Montalcino.

Castelnuovo Dell’abate made a significant contribution to the boom of new plantings 1996-2007, when the area of vineyards in the Brunello has almost doubled. Producers of Brunello from the North-East is particularly readily bought up land here, replacing the olive groves and local planting grass on the vines. Their goal was to soften their tough-tannin wine with something more acceptable and make them more attractive to the consumer.

While some winemakers became interested in the manufacture caricature copies of a 100-point fruit “blockbusters”, others tried to create a balance in the vineyard and to prevent overheating of the berries, as expressed by the Manager of Mastrojanni, mostly “by planting at the correct angle to avoid sunstroke”.

Areas Schiena d’asino and Vigna Loreto (Mastrojanni manufacturer), Ugolaia (Lisini), Manachiara (Silvio Nardi), Fornace (Le Ragnaie), Franci (Fabio Tass) and Pietranera (Centolani) is all examples of the approach that “wine does not do, and grow”

Francesco Illy (Francesco Illy) from Podere Le Ripi, planting your vineyard ‘Bonsai’ has aimed to implement the most dense landing in the world (62500 vines / ha).

“This keeps the productivity of vines at a low level and causes the root to go deeper,” he says. The vines are so close together that to squeeze between them only pulling in the stomach. “It’s crazy, agrees Illi, but so you can avoid the stress of the vines in conditions of heat”. The first vintages from the vineyard Bonsai (Bonsai) Illy is aged in new oak barrels. But fortunately, then decided to stop this disorder and give an opportunity to reveal subtle aromas of berries.

The price of wine of wine single vineyard 10-20% above normal Brunello.

But to pay this premium makes sense, in my opinion, only if the farm trying to reveal the terroir, and not to argue with him. As examples of this approach include Salicutti, Pian Dell Orino and Le Ragnaie – one of my new favorite Brunello, because the “sense of place” (characteristic of the terroir) these wines are very distinctively, partly due to the organic and biodynamic approach.

You may think that I mean that the zoning generally makes sense only if the vineyards are biodynamic or organic, – no, bad organic farming and winemaking (which is possible in Montalcino, sorry) scores terroir is as easy as applying heaps of chemicals.

As the official wine list of the individual vineyards do not exist, the best way to compare these wines and find worthy is to open the bottle, including with new names.