BRUNELLO DI MONTALCINO: We tried 5 legendary producers!

This episode of Our Pour Decisions focuses on wines from Brunello di
Montalcino. Brunello di Montalcino is a fascinating story about how a grandfather and grandson’s work with cloning and wine-making methods set the stage for a thriving wine that’s celebrated by expert critics and wine professionals alike 150 years later. Brunello di Montalcino as the name suggests, is wine made from Brunello, which is the local name for Sangiovese. Montalcino itself is a town in the Siena province in Tuscany. Italy. Brunello di Montalcino was first recognized as a DOC in 1966
and then a DOCG, which Italy’s highest quality designation, in 1980.
The two main characters in the history of BDM are Clemente Santi, the
grandfather who was a writer and scientist and started making wine at Il Greppo in the 1850s, and Ferruccio Biondi, his grandson, who cloned Sangiovese varietals on American rootstocks to combat oidium and phylloxera. And Brunello as we know it today was first released in 1888 by Ferruccio Biondi-Santi. Today, there are about 250 or so wineries producing Brunello but there were only Biondi-Santi and a handful others for nearly a century. The real growth started in the 1970s and accelerated after the DOCG designation in 1980. In that sense, Brunello is a relatively young and up-and-coming wine region of the world despite being located in an area where wine has been produced since ancient times. One of the fascinating aspects of Brunello is that there are at least 7 unique zones within the DOCG. The altitude of Brunello vineyards vary from 300 feet to over
1,800 feet, and then there are the soil variations that range from sandy seabed rich in fossils to areas with heavy clay. The microclimates vary from dry Mediterranean to Continental with morning fog. The five bottles we’re trying today are Biondi-Santi, Pieve Santa Restituta, Renieri, Uccelliera, and Casanova di Neri.

2011 Biondi-Santi BdM
A tasting of Brunellos hardly seems complete without including Biondi-Santi. When Ferruccio Biondi-Santi bottled his first Brunello di Montalcino in 1888, he laid the foundation for an entire DOCG about hundred years later. The wines are still made from Biondi-Santi Clone 11 on the Tenuta Greppo vineyard. The grapes used in this particular bottling are between 10 and 25 years old and the wine spent three years in Slavonian oak barrels which is of course the traditional method the winery established long time ago. Biondi-Santi is synonymous with Brunello di Montalcino.

2010 Pieve Santa Restituta (Gaja)
The Pieve Santa Restituta estate was purchased by Angelo Gaja in 1994, and was Gaja’s first foray into wines outside of Barbaresco and Barolo. Gaja makes three BDMs, two single vineyard wines and this wine, which is a blend of grapes from all of the Gaja owned Montalcino vineyards. Fermentation and maceration took three weeks and the wine was aged 24 months in oak and another six months in concrete vats.

2010 Casanova di Neri BdM “Tenuta Nuova” The Tenuta Nuova received a perfect score by the Wine Advocate and is one of Casanova di Neri’s single vineyard bottlings. The vineyard is located in the warmer microclimate on the southern part of the Brunello di Montalcino DOC away from the winery, which is located on the eastern and north-eastern slopes of the town. The 1993 vintage was first released in 1998, and in 2006, Wine Spectator awarded the 2001 Tenuta Nuova the “Wine of the Year” award. The
wine went through fermentation in stainless steel vats for 25 days and spent 33 months in oak barrels.

2010 Renieri BdM “Riserva”
The Renieri Estate is owned by the Bacci family and is part of the family portfolio of Italian wineries. The Renieri estate is about 120 hectares, of which about a quarter is cultivated with vines. The cellar is located underground to facilitate gravity flow and optimal temperature for aging. The wines are organic and aged 36 months in oak barrels.

2010 Uccelliera BdM “Riserva”
The only son of a sharecropper, Andrea Cortonesi purchased the old homestead with olive trees and a small vineyard in 1986. The vineyard is now 10 hectares, or about 25 acres, and Andrea Cortonesi produces some of the best Brunello di Montalcino around. The 2010 Riserva went through fermentation for 30 days with indigenous yeast and then malolactic fermentation in stainless steel vats. The wine spent 30 months in French and Slovonian oak vessels of various sizes.

Conclusions
Please watch the end of the video for our conclusions and learnings from tasting the five different Brunellos!


0:00 Introduction
01:42 Map Video
02:29 Welcome Stacey!
03:13 Some more history…
04:57 2011 Biondi-Santi BdM
10:07 2010 Pieve Santa Restituta (Gaja)
12:43 2010 Casanova di Neri BdM “Tenuta Nuova”
17:03 2010 Renieri BdM “Riserva”
19:49 2010 Uccelliera BdM “Riserva”
22:34 Conclusions