Wines from Tuscany | Montalcino

This is a wine whose label speaks a language all of its own. Filo di Seta is adorned with an oil painting by Sandro Chia from the early 1980s – now in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. It depicts an androgynous figure leaping backwards into the Grotta Azzurra on Capri: weightless, suspended in that moment between sky and water. Beneath it is Chia's verse: "In strange, dark water – when a white dot glows, when a doll leaps – I fly by her side." The wine, the winemaker tells us, is meant to be precisely that: a sensation that defies the obvious.

The Piero selection was created as a tribute to the work of Pierluigi Talenti, who has selected and worked the Sangiovese with passion over the years. A 1.95 hectare vineyard near the centre of the winery, with unique pedoclimatic characteristics, is distinguished from all other vineyards by its consistent quality. The gently sloping terrain is surrounded by woods rich in marl, with a south-eastern exposure at an altitude of 410 metres above sea level, where Pierluigi followed and cultivated his personal clonal selection in the 1970s. It is a wine with intense and persistent character, ruby colour, fine and elegant tannins. After ageing in tonneaux for at least 24 months, it is bottled until it is released to the market. SUPERIORE.DE

Luce Brunello is dark and impenetrable, as always in its more international style. On the palate, it delivers ripe and round fruit flavours of blackberries and plums with plenty of opulence, power and breed. SUPERIORE.DE

The Consorzio awarded this vintage five stars in Montalcino – a classic Mediterranean climate in its purest form. A cool start to spring with little rainfall and slightly below-average temperatures nevertheless produced a good fruit set, followed by a rather hot summer with a pronounced day-night temperature range. Light rainfall and falling temperatures in September ultimately ensured perfect ripeness, pleasant freshness and truly fantastic phenolic development.

Luce Brunello has been one of the icons in the large portfolio of Frescobaldi wines from Tuscany for years. The 2019 edition opens with great power and determination with ripe fruit flavours of blackberries and candied cherries. On the palate, it is medium-bodied and very harmonious thanks to the bright acidity and the overall quality of the primary fruit flavours of this excellent vintage. The tannins are well woven into the full-bodied density of the wine. Be sure to aerate or, better still, leave to mature for a few years in the cellar. SUPERIORE.DE

After a year's break, the new edition of the long-awaited Brunello Annata comes onto the market with the outstanding 2019 vintage. Initially restrained on the nose, with a little coaxing in the glass it reveals a beautiful blend of fragrant black cherries, mentholated spices, wild herbs, white smoke and a hint of leather. On the palate, silky, enveloping textures, contrasted by cool red and black fruits, plus lively acids that emphasise the spicier and sweeter side of the wine and glide endlessly on the final with fine tannins and minerals. We can already recognise a harmony here that makes us eagerly anticipate the further development of this wonderful wine. SUPERIORE.DE

As always, the stunning Vigneti del Versante offers a spicy and seductive fruit of black cherries and plums, along with flowers, tobacco, minerals and undergrowth. The wine shows great fibre and density, with much of this power coming from the heavier soils of the selected vineyard sites. The overall impression is captivating with its intensity, yet luxurious and mysteriously dark. SUPERIORE.DE

In the early 1990s, Vittorio Frescobaldi and Robert Mondavi joined forces, thereby opening a new chapter in the history of Tuscan wine. Since 2004, sole management has rested with Lamberto Frescobaldi, who has consistently carried forward this vision ever since. Alongside Luce, the estate's renowned flagship wine, the Tenuta has since also devoted itself to Brunello itself – the wine produced in the south-western quadrant of Montalcino from a single, tiny plot known as Madonnino. Of the estate's 92 hectares, only eleven are officially registered in the Albo del Brunello di Montalcino, and it is precisely here, on Galestro soil with ideal exposure, that the Sangiovese finds that balance of structure and elegance for which this grape variety is famous.

The Piero selection was created as a tribute to the work of Pierluigi Talenti, who has selected and worked the Sangiovese with passion over the years. A 1.95 hectare vineyard near the centre of the winery, with unique pedoclimatic characteristics, stands out from all other vineyards for its consistent quality. The gently sloping terrain is surrounded by woods rich in marl, with a south-easterly exposure at an altitude of 410 metres above sea level, where Pierluigi pursued and cultivated his personal clonal selection in the 1970s. It is a wine with an intense and persistent character, ruby red colour, fine and elegant tannins. After maturing in tonneaux for at least 24 months, it is bottled until it is released onto the market. SUPERIORE.DE

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.

Campo del Drago is a single vineyard of just 1.5 hectares and is located on a high plateau in the Montalcino appellation with a view of the Tyrrhenian Sea. The grapes from here are only vinified separately in the best years for the Brunello of the same name and the result is then eagerly awaited around 5 years later. Dark, concentrated colour with beautiful saturation and density. The bouquet reveals a unique minerality and complexity. The palate is intense, complex and deep. The tannins are present, but remain very elegant thanks to the Sangiovese acidity. Can still mature, but is already irresistible today. SUPERIORE.DE

The Piero selection was created as a tribute to the work of Pierluigi Talenti, who has passionately selected and cultivated Sangiovese over the years. A 1.95 hectare vineyard near the centre of the winery, with unique pedoclimatic characteristics, stands out from all other vineyards for its consistent quality. The gently sloping terrain is surrounded by woods rich in marl, with a south-easterly exposure at an altitude of 410 metres above sea level, where Pierluigi pursued and cultivated his personal clonal selection in the 1970s.

Marco Bacci's Brunello Riserva from the dream vintage 2016 presents itself full and generous on the nose. Cascades of violet and black fruits wash over the senses with black cherry, blackberry jam and smoked tobacco. The opulent overall impression is completed with a hint of bitter almond and subtle notes of smoke and nuts. These give the wine a deep and dark character. Very well structured on the palate and built for a long life with its well-formed acid-tannin framework. SUPERIORE.DE

In Andrea Cortonesi's own words, 2019 was the first vintage since the legendary 1990 that gave him the feeling that everything was in balance. A slow start to vegetation after a rainy winter, a summer without heat peaks, even ripening until September. Harvest from 25 September – clean, healthy, concentrated. Already a stroke of luck for the Annata. For the Riserva: a perfect invitation. But not every vintage becomes a Riserva. And not every grape in the best vintage. Cortonesi only uses the oldest vines for the Riserva – planted in 1975, back when the word Brunello was hardly known outside Montalcino. Seven hectares, spread over sites between 150 and 350 metres in Castelnuovo dell'Abate, calcareous-clayey soils with marl and mineral structure. What grows here has decades of life in it.

In 1977, at a time when the term "terroir" was virtually unknown in Montalcino and little attention was paid to the concept of zoning, Caparzo produced the first vintage of this wine. Its name derives from the farm where the farm labourers who worked for the owners of the nearby Palazzo Montosoli once lived. With "La Casa", Caparzo was once again a pioneer: one of the first single-vineyard Brunellos in the entire appellation, from one of Montalcino's most privileged vineyards. And this wine marks a second milestone: Caparzo was among the first wineries to introduce barrique barrels to Montalcino, thereby creating a wine of a gentle, elegant character. The five-hectare vineyard is situated on Montosoli hill, 275 metres above sea level, with a south-southeast-facing aspect. Montosoli is not a large hill, but its slightly greater altitude protects it from both mist and late frosts – a decisive advantage in this northern sector of the appellation, which has cooler average temperatures than other areas. The soil is schist-clay, known locally as "galestro", and is well-drained; the site enjoys an exceptional amount of sunshine.

Caparzo's La Casa vineyard, located in an enviable position on the hill of Montosoli, has been vinified separately since 1977 and is one of the first single-vineyard bottlings in Montalcino. Like the normal Brunello, La Casa has a surprising underlying acidity that gives the wine brightness and focus, and the northern exposure of the parcel has certainly played a role in this.

"The vintage we've all been waiting for" – this is how the international wine critics in Montalcino unanimously describe the 2019 vintage, with a level of enthusiasm rarely seen in such unanimity. Kerin O'Keefe described the 2019s as even more impressive overall than the already legendary 2016s. Andrew Jefford simply called it the best Brunello vintage he had ever tasted, even more dense and consistent than the much-praised Barolo from the same year. Winemakers such as Francesco Buffi of Baricci spoke of a vintage that took them back twenty years; others drew comparisons with the legendary 1988 and 1990 vintages. A magical year in which rain and sunshine arrived at exactly the right time – and in which the Riserva selections once again stood out from the already exceptional Annata wines.

The name says it all: wines of the slopes. Vigneti del Versante is made from grapes from the Cancello Rosso parcel and the lower part of Pian Bassolino – sites, which lie at an altitude of 350 metres and have a soil of exceptional geological diversity. Calcareous clay, slightly decomposed marl, sandstone, flysch – layers from the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods, interspersed with volcanic influences from nearby Monte Amiata. In the Cancello Rosso vineyard, an increased proportion of sand in the topsoil provides the typical spicy and nutty flavours of the berries; Pian Bassolino contributes with a calcareous density. Jan Erbach sees the Vigneti del Versante as the search for a harmony that is more than the sum of its parts – like the different voices of an orchestra that only find their sound together. Spontaneous fermentation, strict selection of grapes on the table, no technological additives, maturation in large oak barrels without filtration.

Gambero Rosso named the Giodo Brunello 2020 "The best red wine in Italy in 2026", and the reasoning reads like a silent tribute: "The sum of his experience with Sangiovese, his first love." His daughter Bianca Ferrini added what is behind the wine: "It is the first vintage in the new cellar, the first chapter together with my father."

In 2020, too, the Consorzio del Vino Brunello officially ranks among the denomination's rare five-star vintages – a warm, promising season without the climatic extremes that characterised other years. At Poggio Antico, this regional excellence is combined with a unique, twofold turning point: it was the estate's very first certified organic harvest, whilst at the same time a year that demanded everything from the vineyard. A late spring frost reduced the harvest by around forty per cent, at precisely the moment when the new ownership team led by Marcel Van Poecke was fully implementing their vision of plot-specific, organic cultivation for the first time. What nature took from this vintage in terms of quantity, it gave back in density.

Produced in small quantities, Vallocchio clearly stands out from pure Brunello di Montalcino. Darker, deeper and more mystical, it shows notes of ripe blackberries and plums, complemented by exotic brown spices and a hint of lemon confit. Its texture is like velvet stretching across the palate, black-fruited and ripe, underpinned by minerals and cooling herbal notes. It is youthfully monolithic and dense, revealing its austere tannin core only towards the end, where notes of black tea, liquorice and a hint of cocoa emerge. SUPERIORE.DE

Only 3,000 bottles of this wine from the highest vineyard in Montalcino are bottled. The choice of the vineyard, which is situated over 600 metres above sea level, is also due to climate change, where winegrowers are increasingly looking for cooler sites for the Sangiovese - and the result is once again a Brunello in a class of its own: leather, tobacco, small red berries and a surprisingly fresh, clearly mineral note on the nose. Although the wine appears very graceful and bright, it is powerful and long. Its grippy tannins and finely knit acidity emphasise our impression that this wine still has a long life ahead of it. SUPERIORE.DE

Since the 2015 vintage, Le Ragnaie has been vinifying another single-vineyard Brunello, which comes from the famous Montosoli vineyard and therefore also bears the black label. Only just under 3,000 bottles of the 2018 vintage will be released, and we are delighted that we were able to obtain at least a few of them. On the nose, graceful tones of wild cherry, pressed blueberries and small blue violets growing deep in the forest. The flavours are more vertical, with cola and medicinal tones rising straight from the top. The attack is compact and lean, with a long, medium-bodied persistence that leaves a precise and sharply drawn trail of fruit flavours. This expression and class can only be found in the wines of the Montosoli vineyard and this wine, rich in finesse, is a real treat! SUPERIORE.DE

On the estate stands a 19th-century railway station – silent, out of step with the times, no longer in use. The wine produced here has something of this image about it: it does not rush; it waits. And the 2021 vintage arrived quietly anyway – no record-breaking summer, no headlines, just a cool spring, moderate heat and day-night temperature fluctuations that gave the Sangiovese exactly what it needs: space to mature. Tenuta Pian delle Vigne lies six kilometres south-west of Montalcino, on calcareous loam with a fine gravel content, facing south-west, at around 130 metres above sea level. Owned by Antinori since 1995 – and steadfastly committed to the same principle ever since: large wooden casks ranging from 30 to 80 hectolitres, which preserve rather than dominate the Sangiovese fruit. No barrique dictates, no trendy embellishments. Just conviction.