Three critics, three scores of 92 — and three very different readings of the same wine. Medicinal cherry and blood orange for one, earth and sun-dried tomato for another. Drink through 2033.
Glossy dark ruby with a soft garnet rim. The nose is expressive: juicy, almost medicinal cherry, mint and pine, with blood orange and a balsamic edge. On the palate it enters soft and supple, almost fruit-sweet, until the firm tannin takes hold and draws the wine tight. Beneath that lies an earthy layer — sun-dried tomato, bran — that recalls Brunello. The finish is longer than average and dries gently bittersweet towards blackberry. Lovely now, but better with two years' patience, and Superiore.de counts well past 2033. Serve around 17 degrees with grilled red meat, game ragout or a matured cheese, and open half an hour ahead.
In Montalcino, grandparents call their granddaughters potazzine, after the small, brightly coloured birds of the Tuscan countryside. That is what their grandmother called Viola and Sofia, the daughters of owner Gigliola Giannetti — and the estate grew in step with them: Viola was born in 1993, the founding year, and when Sofia arrived in 1996 two more hectares took the total to five.
The Rosso here is no by-product. Almost half the Brunello production is declassified into Rosso: the same vineyards, the same wild yeasts, the same forty-day fermentation — only twelve months in the large Slavonian casks instead of nearly four years. Unfiltered, like everything here.
Falstaff tasted this vintage in October 2024 and gave 91 points to the steel-aged sibling; the Rosso came in at 92. The Consorzio rated 2022 at four stars.
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