Brunello 2021 & Riserva 2020

The Vigna Loreto covers one and a half hectares. Steep, stony and east-facing – , the slope faces the morning sun, not the midday sun. The soil is rich in tuff and pebbles, poor in nutrients, and unforgiving. The vines are the result of a mass selection from eight estate-grown Sangiovese clones that Mastrojanni has selected over decades: the estate’s genetic memory is embodied in every vine. It was Gabriele Mastrojanni himself who recognised Vigna Loreto as a distinct plot – the ability to display finesse where Castelnuovo dell’Abate would otherwise impress with its power. Today, every vintage confirms what the founder saw: Loreto speaks more softly than the great Brunello, but with greater precision. The east-facing aspect gives the wine freshness; the tuff lends it mineral tension; the lean soils force concentration without overripeness. 36 months’ ageing in Allier barrels ranging from 16 to 33 hectolitres – the small barrels, the intimacy that the wood lends the wine without dominating it.

This is a wine where the label speaks its own language. Filo di Seta is adorned with an oil painting by Sandro Chia from the early 1980s – now in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. It shows an androgynous figure leaping backwards into the Grotta Azzurra on Capri: weightless, suspended between sky and water. Below it, Chia's verse: "In strange, dark water – when a white dot shines, when a doll jumps – i fly by her side." Wine, the winemaker tells us, is supposed to be just that: a sensation that overcomes the obvious.

When Alessandro Mori and his young family moved into the dilapidated house on the northern walls of Montalcino in 1993, there was only one habitable room. The rest was decay and promise. Today, three decades later, Il Marroneto is a monument to what perseverance and conviction can create. The building itself dates back to the 13th century – a drying house for chestnuts (marroni) that once belonged to the nuns of the small Madonna delle Grazie chapel. Here they prepared bread for weary pilgrims on the Via Francigena. Alessandro still remembers the bells ringing over the vineyards of his childhood.

A railway station from the 19th century still stands on the estate – silent, fallen out of time, functionless. The wine that is produced here has something of this image: it doesn't hurry, it waits. And the 2021 came quietly anyway – no record-breaking summer, no headlines, just a cool spring, moderate heat and day-night fluctuations that gave the Sangiovese exactly what it needed: room to mature. Tenuta Pian delle Vigne is located six kilometres southwest of Montalcino, on calcareous clay soil with fine gravel, exposed to the southwest, around 130 metres above sea level. Antinori-owned since 1995 – and has been unyieldingly committed to the same principle ever since: large wooden barrels of between 30 and 80 hectolitres that preserve rather than dominate the Sangiovese fruit. No barrique dictates, no fashionable make-up. Only conviction.

A Brunello Riserva that is only born in years that the winery considers exceptional. Not every great harvest produces a Caterina and certainly not a Riserva. It is the promise that Giuseppe Bianchini made to himself when he unexpectedly inherited an entire vineyard in 1985: he would create a wine that would be a monument to its terroir. The name has something sacred about it, a silent reference to the spiritual tradition of this landscape between the Abbey of Sant'Antimo and the hills of Castelnuovo dell'Abate. Santa Caterina d'Oro – the golden Catherine – as if to provide the wine with a patron saint, a protector of its long journey through time.

Above the vineyard is a brown road sign: Passo del Lume Spento m. 621 s.l.m. The highest point of the entire Brunello appellation. The name is self-explanatory: The wind on this sandstone plateau was so strong that it extinguished the lanterns of the carriages that once crossed this pass. The light always went out. The place remained. No Brunello was allowed to grow here until 2016. The DOCG regulations set an upper limit at 600 metres – and Passo del Lume Spento is at 621 metres. When the rules were changed, Riccardo Campinoti was one of the first to take the plunge. The vines were planted in 2010 and 2012 – young, on a sandstone plateau with south-west exposure, which on clear days offers views as far as the Tyrrhenian Sea. Gaja and Marchesi Antinori have also bought in this zone since then. You don't have to be a clairvoyant to understand why.

Pianrosso: the red field. The name tells of iron-rich soils that give the Sangiovese that mineral depth that no cellar in the world can imitate. 11.7 hectares on the south-eastern edge of Montalcino, between 240 and 360 metres above sea level, where ancient marine material meets Galestro slate. Giuseppe Bianchini had the vineyard replanted in the 1980s, knowing that the heart of the winery lies dormant here. Pianrosso is only bottled in superior years, a strict selection of the best grapes, a whole year longer in Slavonian vats than the classic Brunello. 36 months in large wood, then further rest in the bottle. The result is not a wine for quick enjoyment, but a document of patience. In 2021, Montalcino produced one of those vintages that you never forget: bright September days, cool nights, perfect phenolic ripeness.

Directly in front of the winery, at an altitude of 600 metres, with a view to the south-west and the sea on the horizon, lies a vineyard that was planted in 1968. It is called Vigna Vecchia – the old vineyard. That's all it needs to introduce itself. 56-year-old vines on quartz-rich soil, the last plot on the estate to be harvested – some years not until mid-October. The old vine is slow, it yields little and concentrates a lot. What it produces is not a broad portrait of the terroir, but a monologue – precise and of a density that can only be explained by age. Riccardo Campinoti vinifies the Vigna Vecchia like all his Brunello: concrete vats, natural yeasts, long maceration, then 36 months in large Slavonian oak barrels. No Riserva label – although the wine would justify it. Campinoti deliberately refrains from doing so. As in Burgundy, it is the location and terroir that count, not the category.

Riserva is not an automatic process at Fuligni. It is created when a vintage deserves it – and when the estate's oldest vineyards have produced something that is more than Brunello. More than good. 1972, 1976, 2002: vintages in which Fuligni simply did not bring any Brunello onto the market because the quality was not right. This consistency is rare, because you have to be able and willing to afford it. It is also the foundation on which a Riserva acquires its very special meaning. 2020 was not an easy year. Warm, dry, early ripening – a vintage that many producers dismissed as too lush, too soft. Fuligni saw it differently. The north-east-facing sites in Cottimelli, between 380 and 450 metres, on Galestro – stony, cool, with natural acidity even in hot years – dampened the heat and preserved the freshness. What was a challenge in flatter, warmer sites resulted in concentrated, healthy grapes with depth and surprising elegance. The oldest vines on the estate, over forty years old, with reduced yields and highly concentrated juice, provided the material for the selection.

In 1978, the first bottle of Brunello from Casanova di Neri found its way onto the market – then still called "Vino Rosso dai Vigneti di Brunello", five years after the first harvest. Giovanni Neri had found his dream and his son Giacomo began to realise it. The white label was there from the very beginning – and still is today. The Brunello White Label comes from specially designated vineyards around Podere Fiesole to the east of Montalcino – the same vineyards from which the estate has been making its Brunello for over four decades. After a cool, slow spring, 2021 brought a balancing, dry summer and even ripening into September.

The name is a tribute. Giodo – composed of Giovanna and Donatello, the names of his parents. Carlo Ferrini, one of Italy's most important Oenologist, has dedicated his life to Sangiovese – as a consultant for estates from Montalcino to Etna and as the designer of some of the most influential wines in Tuscany over the last three decades. It was not a question of if he would found his own winery at some point, but when. In 2002, he found it: ten hectares in Sant'Angelo in Colle, south-west Montalcino, seven of them woodland, three for the vine. And the vine here is exclusively Sangiovese – 15 carefully selected clones, planted with the patience of a man who knows that great wines are not made, but accompanied.

Castelnuovo dell'Abate has its own character – rougher, denser, more mineral than many other corners of the appellation. The clayey-sandy soils with their high proportion of skeleton, the altitudes between 150 and 350 metres, the lee of Monte Amiata, the cool nights from the Orcia Valley: anyone who plants vines here gets Sangiovese with attitude. Andrea Cortonesi has been planting here for almost four decades. 2021 demanded a lot from this terroir – and the winegrower – a lot. The late frost in April hit the lower vineyards hard and the harvest was around 15 per cent smaller than the previous year. A hot, dry summer followed before two rainfalls in the second half of August gave the vineyards water and the grapes their final aromatic depth. The long September nights did the rest: phenolic ripeness, without heat character, without compromising on freshness. What Uccelliera subsequently brought into the cellar was concentrated, healthy, clear and – and with that crisp fruitiness that makes Castelnuovo wines unmistakable.

Prètto. A word from the Tuscan dialect – true, sincere, schietto. Carlo Ferrini could not have chosen a more fitting name for a wine that is exactly that: no gesture, no staging, but Sangiovese in its most direct form. The Prètto is a joint effort – born from the dialogue between father and daughter, between three decades of experience and a young generation that sees Montalcino with new eyes. Bianca Ferrini, born in 1990, has given the Giodo project a very special voice with this wine. Four hectares of Sangiovese in Sant'Angelo in Colle, south-west Montalcino, at 360 metres in south-eastern exposure. Medium-heavy, skeleton-rich soil, 6,600 plants per hectare – a density that creates stress and forces concentration. Hand-picked, 20 days of maceration in steel and cement, délestage halfway through fermentation. Then around 30 months of ageing in 500, 700 and 2,500 Literswooden barrels – medium to large containers that give the wine structure without wood characterisation. Then six months in cement, followed by a further 12 months in the bottle. 12,000 bottles were produced.

Some wineries tell their story on display boards. At Fuligni, it hangs on the walls. The palazzo in the centre of Montalcino dates back to the 17th century – the Medici resided here and a Spanish princess left a room that still bears her name today. Underneath, deeper than the palazzo itself, are the cellars: built at the end of the 16th century, with vaulted ceilings in tecnica mista, completely naturally insulated. This is where the Brunello matures in Slavonian oak barrels. It also matured here when Giovanni Maria Fuligni came to Montalcino at the beginning of the 20th century – and it matures here, just as his ancestors made wine in the Maremma before him, without interruption, without abbreviation.

There are wines that have invented a category. Madonna del Piano was one of the very first single-vineyard Brunelli ever produced – long before the appellation had a formal language for the concept of cru, long before other houses started bottling their best parcels separately. Vincenzo Abbruzzese's grandfather had bought the estate in 1953; Vincenzo himself turned a small vineyard parcel in Montosoli into what James Suckling described as "one of the great wines of Tuscany, if not Italy". The Madonna del Piano parcel is located in the heart of the Valdicava vineyards, at 350 metres in the northern Montosoli zone, on soil rich in galestro and limestone, which gives the Sangiovese Grosso a mineral austerity and floral depth that is not found in warmer locations in Montalcino. Organic cultivation without chemical intervention for generations. Yield reduced to the absolute minimum. Every berry counts.

The year 1991 was the first. With the 2021 vintage, Poggio di Sotto is celebrating its thirtieth Brunello – an anniversary that the estate is marking with a special label in gold print, discreetly and without pomp, entirely in the style of the house. Thirty vintages that have proven that elegance is not a weakness. 2021 was not an easy year. Late frosts in spring decimated the harvest, summer brought heat, August finally brought rain – a sequence that could have been disastrous in other hands. Cellar master Leonardo Berti sees this as the special character of this vintage: fewer grapes, more concentration and an intensity gained through stress, which was kept in balance by the freshness of the long growing season. The soils – a mosaic of white and red clay, galestro and grey marl – did the rest. Spontaneous fermentation in wooden vats, maceration for at least 30 days, 42 months in large Slavonian oak barrels, unfiltered. The recipe is the same. The wine is not.

Montosoli is a plateau to the north of Montalcino – one of the few sites in the appellation to which producers from different houses refer when they want to name the best of their terroir. A name like a silent agreement among those who know: This is where the soil speaks most clearly. The high proportion of silt in this special subsoil gives the Sangiovese Grosso a minerality, transparency and freshness that can hardly be found in this form in any other part of Montalcino. And at the heart of this plateau lies the Vigna Montosoli of Valdicava. Vincenzo Abbruzzese has treated this parcel differently from the very beginning – harvested separately, vinified separately, vinified separately. Vigna Montosoli is Valdicava's youngest single vineyard and also its flagship: the 2019 first vintage immediately received 100 points from James Suckling, one of only two perfect Brunellos from this exceptional vintage. The message was clear.

Tenuta Nuova means "new winery". And the name carries weight: when Giacomo Neri acquired the land around Le Cetine near the Abbazia di Sant'Antimo in southern Montalcino in the early 1990s, nobody had planted Sangiovese there yet. This was not an oversight – it was a judgement that Giacomo Neri wanted to revise. Not out of spite, but out of conviction: that this terrain, this microclimate, these soils have the potential for a Brunello with its own character. What followed was not a gut feeling, but a method. Systematic analyses of the microclimates, the optimal exposures, the soils – clone selection, rootstock research, planting distances, everything scrutinised, everything decided. The first result came in 1993, and a few years later the rest of the world was talking about it.

The Vigna Loreto covers one and a half hectares. Steep, stony and facing east – , the slope faces the morning sun, not the midday sun. The soil is rich in tuff and pebbles, poor in nutrients, and unforgiving. The vines are the result of a mass selection from eight estate-grown Sangiovese clones that Mastrojanni has selected over decades: the estate’s genetic memory is embodied in every vine. It was Gabriele Mastrojanni himself who recognised Vigna Loreto as a distinct plot – the ability to display finesse where Castelnuovo dell’Abate otherwise impresses with its power. Today, every vintage confirms what the founder saw: Loreto speaks more softly than the great Brunello, but with greater precision. The east-facing aspect gives the wine freshness; the tuff lends it mineral tension; the lean soils force concentration without overripeness. 36 months’ ageing in Allier barrels ranging from 16 to 33 hectolitres – the small barrels, the intimacy that the wood lends the wine without dominating it.

Giovanni Neri died in 1986, fifteen years after buying Podere Casanova. He had lived the dream – but not long enough to see what became of it. His son Giacomo and his grandsons Giovanni and Gianlorenzo continue to live his dream. And on the fiftieth anniversary of the first vineyard, they dedicated a wine to the founder that bears his name – and his attitude: the belief that Montalcino can do more than the world thought at the time. The vineyard is old and untamed, as the estate itself puts it – vines over fifty years old that have never stopped taking deep roots.

When Alessandro Mori and his young family moved into the dilapidated house on the northern walls of Montalcino in 1993, there was only one habitable room. The rest was decay and promise. Today, three decades later, Il Marroneto is a monument to what perseverance and conviction can create. The building itself dates back to the 13th century – a drying house for chestnuts (marroni) that once belonged to the nuns of the small Madonna delle Grazie chapel. Here they prepared bread for weary pilgrims on the Via Francigena. Alessandro still remembers the bells ringing over the vineyards of his childhood.

Frost fell over Montalcino on 7 April 2021. And again on 15 April. In some vineyards, it destroyed a third of the harvest. In Vignavecchia, on its steep western slope at an altitude of 420 metres, it hit the vines differently: not as destruction, but as selection. What survived were the strongest shoots, the best protected grapes – a natural yield limitation, more radical than any human intervention. Nature cut what the winegrower would never have dared. What followed was a summer of extremes and an autumn of perfection. The months up to August were hot and dry, followed by sporadic rainfall that gave the vines a rest. September brought what Sangiovese needs: warm days, cool nights, those temperature amplitudes that preserve flavour and acidity while phenolic ripeness progresses. The harvest began almost two weeks earlier than was usual just a few years ago – a sign of climate change, but this year also a sign of good fortune: the grapes reached perfection before the autumn rains set in.

Riserva is not an automatic process at Fuligni. It is created when a vintage deserves it – and when the estate's oldest vineyards have produced something that is more than Brunello. More than good. 1972, 1976, 2002: vintages in which Fuligni simply did not bring any Brunello onto the market because the quality was not right. This consistency is rare, because you have to be able and willing to afford it. It is also the foundation on which a Riserva acquires its very special meaning. 2020 was not an easy year. Warm, dry, early ripening – a vintage that many producers dismissed as too lush, too soft. Fuligni saw it differently. The north-east-facing sites in Cottimelli, between 380 and 450 metres, on Galestro – stony, cool, with natural acidity even in hot years – dampened the heat and preserved the freshness. What was a challenge in flatter, warmer sites resulted in concentrated, healthy grapes with depth and surprising elegance. The oldest vines on the estate, over forty years old, with reduced yields and highly concentrated juice, provided the material for the selection.

The name is a tribute. Giodo – composed of Giovanna and Donatello, the names of his parents. Carlo Ferrini, one of Italy's most important Oenologist, has dedicated his life to Sangiovese – as a consultant for estates from Montalcino to Etna and as the designer of some of the most influential wines in Tuscany over the last three decades. It was not a question of if he would found his own winery at some point, but when. In 2002, he found it: ten hectares in Sant'Angelo in Colle, south-west Montalcino, seven of them woodland, three for the vine. And the vine here is exclusively Sangiovese – 15 carefully selected clones, planted with the patience of a man who knows that great wines are not made, but accompanied.