From rags to riches: How Brunello di Montalcino came to rule the world of wine
The medieval Tuscan hilltop town of Montalcino is skirted with vineyards and forest, tumbling away in every direction: A picture of perennial aloof ease. Simply information technology'south an illusion.
"When my begetter came here in 1974, it was ane of the poorest municipalities in Italy," remembered Count Francesco Marone Cinzano, owner of the Col d'Orcia manor. "We were living in misery," Alessandro Pierangioli confirmed. "Now we are lords."
READ > Wine investment: With Fine Burgundy prices declining, has the bubble burst?
His family had been sharecroppers and winery workers for Biondi-Santi for generations; he now has a vino shop and a chauffeuring business, and his wife a gelateria. In winter, mists fill the valleys, leaving the town bathing in a downy white sea – "like an island of happiness," said Pierangioli.
That's what wine can do, under the right circumstances. It was 19th-century vino pioneers, such every bit Clemente Santi, Count Tito Costanti and Ferruccio Biondi Santi, who beginning established Montalcino'due south credentials for fine ruby wine. They made it with "Brunello" – the local clone of Sangiovese, Tuscany'south peachy red-grape diversity – and without adding vino from white-grape varieties, as was mutual for Chianti at the time.
They had the loftiest ambitions for their land, merely by 1967 plantings had dwindled to just 65ha of vineyards. A combination of phylloxera, Prohibition in the United states, two globe wars and the devastating frosts of 1956 had snuffed demand, while the construction of the Autostrada del Sole in 1964 stole the passing trade that the town had ever enjoyed on the road southward to Rome.
"We were living in misery. Now we are lords."
What's happened since has been part-renaissance, part-reinvention. Mod Brunello di Montalcino producers proceed to emphasise their wine'south deviation from Chianti, even though both wine regions share the Sangiovese variety.
Brunello's snug geographical situation south of Siena, protected past Monte Amiata, the hills of Montecucco and the Colli Senesi, means that information technology is often riper and more amply constituted than Chianti Classico, which lies farther north betwixt Florence and Siena, bathed in the cool air of the Apennines, and hence harvested a calendar week to 10 days after.
Ripeness remains a treasured quality in the mod vino world, since it has been associated historically with the best vintages, and information technology provides ready sensual gratification. From the mid-1990s onward, also, Chianti Classico rules were modified to permit the controversial addition of upwardly to 20 per cent of international varieties such every bit Cabernet, Merlot and Syrah to blends.
Brunello di Montalcino contemplated similar changes in 2008 but wisely rejected the possibility and thus retains the lustre of being a "pure Sangiovese" appellation.
The region also had the good sense, as long agone equally 1983, to create the junior denominazione of Rosso di Montalcino. This little brother has much shorter ageing regulations (just a year, with no requirement for time in forest) than those of Brunello itself.
Indeed, non only must Brunello spend a minimum of two years in oak and a further 4 months in bottle, it too cannot leave its nascence cellar until 5 years after harvest – the 2014s are the latest release. Rosso, past contrast, can be released on Sep 1 in the yr post-obit the harvest: It's just 3 weeks until we come across the 2018s.
All of this gives producers the invaluable adventure to scrutinise, sift and sort their crop. Less promising wines from younger vines, difficult sites or even whole vintages in which the weather weather were unpropitious (such as 2014) can be sold earlier at often pocket-sized prices, thereby ensuring the standards for Brunello itself remain high.
The genuinely aristocratic Biondi-Santi, for example, produced no Brunello at all in 2014; everything was used for Rosso. Selling some of your wine before helps ease cash catamenia too. Having five entire harvests locked up in a cellar at one time would pose problems for smaller producers.
READ > The Singaporean champagne collector with 3,000 bottles for friends and family
There's a further do good of the full ageing regulations. They mean that Brunello is delivered to consumers in a semi-mature state, especially when the oaking has been carried out in big tuns and exceeded the minimum time period.
This is an edge that fine Italian reds in general have over French; traditional Barolo and Barbaresco are handled in the aforementioned manner. All can exist boozer on release and will rarely be fierce or brutal. Aggressive French reds, past dissimilarity, insist on farther ageing from the purchaser when offset sold.
This style of ageing, though, means there is little point in looking for primary fruit aromas in Brunello di Montalcino. Sometimes these wines will seem aromatically understated and soft-contoured when first poured, though in drinking you volition perceive the subtlety of their aromatic weave.
They may be ripe, but they are rarely heavyweights: Diversity and identify volition too get out a succulent balancing legacy of thrift and angularity, subconscious in their ripe depths. Brunello is amply tannic, but five years' seclusion tames and softens those tannins before they accomplish the drinker.
This island of happiness is not without its problems. Like many zones at the warmer terminate of Europe's wine regions, climatic change is beginning to unsettle. The 2022 vintage was the warmest always in Montalcino: Temperatures hitting 42 degrees Celsius on no fewer than 12 days. Rut and drought saw product levels fall past upward to 40 per cent in some parts – a worrying precedent.
The desire of many producers and consumers to explore the region's sub-zones – such as the celebrated Montosoli, a low loma due north of Montalcino itself – presents another difficulty. The authorities seem reluctant to embrace and define sub-zones or crus, and there are every bit all the same none of the enlightening maps that cartographer and publisher Alessandro Masnaghetti has provided for Piedmont and other Italian regions.
There is a Riserva category that, at only vii per cent of the whole, might exist described every bit undersubscribed and mayhap underperforming, given that "ordinary" Brunello is already handsomely anile and a vino of some lustre.
None of this, though, constitutes any kind of existential challenge to a region of widely exported, lucrative and much enjoyed carmine wines. Brunello di Montalcino'southward hard years are now long in the past. Perennial aristocratic ease may beckon.
Outstanding Brunello di Montalcino producers:
- Gianni Brunelli 2013
- Uccelliera 2013
- Tenute Silvio Nardi 2013
- Canalicchio di Sopra 2010
- Il Marroneto 2013
- Sesti, Castello di Argiano 2013
- Siro Pacenti VV 2013
Other leading producers crafting distinctive, long-lived Brunello di Montalcino:
- Fattoria dei Barbi
- Baricci Colombaio Montosoli
- Biondi-Santi
- Casanova di Neri
- Col d'Orcia
- Fuligni
- Pian delle Vigne (Antinori)
- Pieve Santa Restituta (Gaja)
- Podere Le Ripi
- Salicutti
Andrew Jefford © 2022 The Financial Times
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/experiences/brunello-di-montalcino-250806
0 Response to "From rags to riches: How Brunello di Montalcino came to rule the world of wine"
Post a Comment