The year of lockdown, when the family tended the vineyards by hand until they looked like gardens. Vinous awarded 97 points after retasting, Decanter and Parker 95 each.
A wonderful ruby red, luminous and bright as a great Sangiovese should be. The nose is darkly alluring: flowery underbrush, worn leather and sage giving way to crushed strawberry and autumnal spice, alongside pulverised stone and pressed violet. On the palate the wine is taut and polished rather than broad; the tannins are sapid, almost saline, and the acidity typical of this vintage lends a spicy tension. At 13.5 percent alcohol everything stays light on its feet. The finish is long and mineral. Drinking window 2028 to 2045; lovely already after two hours in a decanter. Lovely with roast lamb, duck breast or a truffle risotto.
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 Brunello is made traditionally here: a spontaneous fermentation of some forty days on the estate's own wild yeasts, without temperature control, followed by forty-two months in casks of 30 and 50 hectolitres of Slavonian oak from Garbellotto. Unfiltered.
The producer calls 2020 a fantastic vintage: an exemplary spring, rain that built reserves for a hot summer, and an excellent day-night range in September.
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