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Posts Tagged ‘Brunello’

The launch of the 2006 vintage of Brunello has been mildly controversial.   This special wine is made from the particular type of Sangiovese grape variety grown on the Montalcino plateau in southern Tuscany; the resulting wine is released for sale after five years, at least two of which have to be in oak.  The launch has not been controversial with a big C – the big row which erupted in 2008 continues over whether some growers have in recent years been ‘improving’ their Brunello by adding small amounts of Merlot or Cabernet to improve the colour and roundedness of their wines, which, while harmless to health, would be fraud.

Rather, with regard to the 2006 vintage, the issue has been over the quality level.  Understandably the growers’ consortium was hoping for some unadulterated (sorry) good news to put recent events behind them and it has have been quick to hail 2006 as a five star vintage. And influential American commentators have been wildly adulatory about the quality.    By contrast the word from the Brunello anteprima, the trade tasting of the new wines in Tuscany itself, was much more mixed. Wine journalists reported some very good wines and some ordinary ones.  This matters to the wine lover as Brunello is the biggest name in Italian fine wines (as shown in recent market research). The wines are not cheap so we really need to know how good they are. 

A tasting in London gave a chance to make one’s own mind up, at least about one large and prestigious producer.  Best of all it gave the chance to compare this wine with two earlier good years, 2004 and 1997.  It was a privilege to be at this event at which Marchese Leonardo Frescobaldi presented his wines with apparently tireless good humour and courtesy, and threw in an excellent lunch in the setting of the restaurant which bears his family’s name tucked into a smart corner of the large, new wine department at Harrods.  We British are very susceptible to a touch of class, not to mention lunch, so I will be as objective as I can be! But, on the other hand, wine is supposed to be enjoyed with good food in excellent and, if possible,  informed company, so in another way this was a perfect setting to try the wine.

In general 2006 was a good to excellent year in Tuscany.  On the coast and in the Maremma it was very good – but then it nearly always is.  A better indicator is Chianti Classico which, like Brunello, also comes from inland sites and some altitude. In Chianti the wines are excellently fresh and balanced: see Chianti Classico finds its soul.  But all this matters not a jot – what matters is what the year was like on the CastelGiocondo estate where the grapes were grown and the answer here is ‘mixed’. Lamberto Frescobaldi, the winemaker, wrote in his diary in late August of his foreboding. The weather continued to be cloudy and cool and he was anxious about the forthcoming harvest.  In his mind were the countless of hours of work which had been put in by his workers in wind, rain and the unforgiving sun, and whether this would all come to nothing if the poor weather continued.  But the good news was that September brought the stable sunny weather which all were hoping for and a fine harvest followed.  So what is the wine like? And how does Brunello from good years develop in the bottle? 

 
You can see on the left that the 2006 is a typical mid to pale ruby red of oak aged Sangiovese – a good colour but not overly dense. It is a five year old wine aged in mainly used French barriques so it has lost the purple edge of youth. By contrast, the 1997, on the right,  has developed that marvellous pale brick red associated with older wines.  In another decade the orange notes would be even more marked. 

The 2006 has an immediately attractive cherry nose with some balsam notes, of medium intensity.  It is fresh and hits a good compromise between assertiveness and elegance.  This is followed on palate by an impressive attack, the characteristic acidity of Sangiovese, with lots of sour cherry fruit, but there is also some softness (by the standards of Brunello) with modern oak effects, not vanilla but hints of smoke and chocolate, and quite fine and moderate tannins.  In terms of modern versus traditional, it just creeps into the modern end of the spectrum of Brunello – attractively drinkable at a mere five years of age, but recognisably Tuscan and with the structure and assertiveness of Brunello.  Is it a great vintage? – I am not sure; I would need to taste a lot more examples and we will all need to see how it develops over time. Is it a fine wine? Certainly it is. 

The 2004 comes from an uncontestably good vintage, very even and reliable.  It is now in young mid life and has developed a sort of sleek refinement to go with the sour cherry, mineral and maturation notes and powerful structure.  It finishes with liquorish and cloves and is altogether complex and very polished.  If you like your Brunello on the young side, this is wine to drink now and for the next five years – as the Marchese agreed over lunch. 

1997 was a difficult and painful year for the growers affected by the hail storms in April which massively reduced the eventual crop. What survived was very good indeed, but not much survived.  Now fourteen years old all the fresh fruit-related flavours have been transformed into layers of mushroom and undergrowth, rounded on the palate, earthly and mineral, with a spicy finish.  Not really a wine for drinking (except perhaps with the lamb with mushroom dish it just about accompanied if you had saved some till this point), more for savouring with friends who will appreciate its subtlety and development.

Whatever the final  view on the 2006s, this tasting showed the enduring appeal of wines from a great territory with genuine vintage variation.  Brunello is never going to be an easy ride with its initial dose of acidity and tannin. But these are what give the wine its structure, power and durability. But the way that the wines develop over years and even decades and the variation from year to year are the factors which give Brunello its perennial fascination.  In this way, 2006 takes its place with many other good to excellent years. 

Other 2006 vintage Brunello

For the sake of comparison, here are some further wines from Montalcino from the 2006 vintage. Both are from the Lea & Sandeman tasting in May 2011:

Collemattoni 2006, 14.5% – on first impression this did not seem that impressive but I think that was just me.  On a second tasting, the perfumed nose was very evident (modest wood effects and underlying fruit), then fine textured fruit, extremely drinkable already. 

Fuligni 2006, 14.5% – strikingly rich, with a fresh palate and layers of interest, substantial if fine tannins reassure that this is for long term development. 

Sangiovese, the most important red grape of Tuscany, is famously variable.  It produces both thin sour wine (though today there is really no excuse for this) and some of Italy’s most magnificent, structured and age-worthy reds.  The May 2010 edition of Decanter magazine gives the Brunello riserva of 2004 from Biondi-Santi an amazing 20/20 score – apparently the perfect wine, even if it is a breathtaking £200 a bottle.

A huge range of Sangiovese styles was available of course at the recent Vinitaly.  My tastings of the wines from the Maremma (eg the very traditional and wonderful Podere 414 or the warm climate Parmaletto wines of Montecucco) will be added to the Tuscan Maremma pages of this site.  Here I want to concentrate on a favourite Chianti zone, cool Rufina, and one classic wine from southerly Montalcino. 

The Rufina zone is easy to reach as it is basically just east of Florence on the steep hills which rise from the Sieve river.  It is the coolest of the Chianti zones and can produce the most wonderfully austere wines with long ageing potential.  Fortunately this style is not to everyone’s taste so the wines are good value too.  

The Rufina consortium’s stand at Vinitaly gave a wonderful opportunity to taste a number of wines side-by-side and to compare each growers normale with the riserva.  Mind you, there is nothing ‘normal’ about these normali. 

Here are the two offerings from the large firm of Galliga e Vetrice.  A trick of the light makes the normale on the right look rather darker than in reality, while the ageing of the riserva can clearly be seen in the brown tinge on the right.  The latter is available at a great price from Berry Bros.  

It would be tedious to rehearse all the wines here.  The pair shown above illustrate the two main styles, with the normale (2008) having wonderful freshness, a real zing and some classy minerality. By contrast the riserva of 2007 is very young and still showing tobacco and leather notes from oak ageing and is very tannic, very distinctive and will no doubt be wonderful in 5-10 years time. 

We also tasted wines from the very cool sites of Marchesi Gondi (their 2005 riserva has lots of potential but is still a sleeping giant), while Castello di Trebbio riserva 2006 has more fruit and is already drinking well – but then it was a better year.  We also enjoyed Dreolino’s two offerings. 

By complete contrast, at the Castello di Argiano stand we managed to catch up with a modern cult classic.   Argiano is one of the big names of the world famous Montalcino area which is a relatively high plateau with a distinctive geology and a local form of Sangiovese known as Brunello, the ‘little dark one’.  From these special berries – and three to five or more years in large, neutral, oak barrels – emerge wines of great complexity, structure and longevity.  Our short tasting started with the Brunello di Montalcino of 2005. Such is the richness of the experience at Vinitaly that you can occasionally skip all the ‘lesser’ wines and start with Brunello.  2005 was a mixed year but this now has nicely browning edges to its medium ruby colour, an attractive nose of red fruit and violets, and good balance. 

But the bottle we really wanted to taste is simply called Suolo – soil.  When we visited Argiano four years ago, I tried to buy a bottle of this not knowing how much it cost (€70), but it was sold out.  It is not Brunello in its typical style at all but a wine made from the same 100% Sangiovese grapes from 50 year old vines.  The principal difference is that the wine is aged for 18 months in new and one year old barriques, not the traditional larger botti.    This treatment means that it is a rather more modern style, with more obvious vanilla and leather aromas from the new oak, luxurious rather than austere. But the real triumph in this 2007 vintage is the beautiful, ripe fruit which shines through.  There is plenty of room in my (sadly hypothetical) grand cellar for brilliant new wines of this quality alongside traditional Brunello which will go on developing for years or decades. 

As you drive from the south towards the high plateau on which the hill town of Montalcino sits in Southern Tuscany, you can’t really miss the presence of Banfi.  In a mixed landscape of farming, woods, hunting land and of course vineyards, once you cross the River Orcia you see first an enormous factory of a winery – there is no other word – and then the romantic castle. 

The winery, down on the plain, is a bit of a blot on the landscape.  But then, we can be too snooty about this – it provides employment, wealth and a serious commitment to lifting the standards of everyday wine, which is its mainstay.  So Banfi is a big, big player.   

The firm’s everyday wines are good, modern bottles. They show lots of innovation with an unusually wide range of wines for Tuscany – a full range of international grape varieties and even a Pinot Grigio, all carried forward by expertise in vineyard and winery, and the power of the brand.

But brands don’t really get prestige unless they have quality wines.  And Banfi has to succeed with its Brunello as, after all, we are not far from the walls of Montalcino.  This variety is part of the large Sangiovese family, capricious, given to variation, difficult to grow and vinify well, prone to excess acid and astringency.  In short, as capable of the bad and the ugly as the good and the great. 

Historically, Brunello was a bit of a beast to be tamed.  The word is simply the local name for the type of Sangiovese grown here.  As it hints (brunello – brunette!), the grape produces wine that is darker than it relatives, with high tannins and acidity.  Back in the nineteenth century the Biondi-Santi family created a style for it: put simply, make wine, put in large barrel and wait for five years for the beast to calm down.  Hopefully what emerged was a wine of complex, aged fruit, scents of liquorice and tobacco, long lived.  But that takes time and so is an expensive proposition.  A tasting in London of the Banfi’s top wines showed how they at least are tackling this challenge. 

The tasting at Decanter’s Fine Wine Encounter, November 2009, was led by Cristina Mariani-May, part of the owner’s family.  She gave us the family philosophy, emphasising raising quality through investment and research. The wines themselves spoke clearly of how Banfi want to re-position Brunello as a more immediately attractive wine. 

Brunello Poggio alle Mura is only made in exceptional years. The 2004 is a complex wine, attractively ruby in colour, with fresh and dried fruit flavours and a luscious topping of French oak, vanilla especially.  In the mouth it is refined but with a great streak of acid. I had a double reaction to it. On taking the very first sniff, I wrote down ‘happiness’ for its excellent Sangiovese character and immediate appeal. And then I thought – but it’s very atypical for Brunello and, more importantly, what is going to happen when the veneer of French barrique wears off?  But we will only be able to tell that in another 5-10 years …

  You can clearly see the effect of even short-term ageing in the picture of the 2004 (on the left, with the brighter red) and the 2001 (on the right, developing some orange at the rim).  This second wine was more traditional, a nose of sour cherries, preserved fruit and plums, a wine that you have to go toward, rather than it leaping out of the glass at you.   That may answer the question in relation to the 2004 (and all may be well) but certainly, it is immediately appealing.  Banfi know about modern (American?) consumers and that they don’t want to wait to drink their wine. 

The older wines are more typical, all well-made, with no signs of oxidisation common in more average wines. 

Brunello 1999 – musky, beautiful fruit, much better balance now between overall weight in the mouth and acidity

Brunello 1997 – mulberries and plums, earthy or mushroom notes beginning to develop, balsam, still refreshing

Brunello Riserva Poggio all’Oro 1995 – a star wine, powerful notes of fruit, liquorice, velvety, still good acid and a drying finish

Brunello Riserva Poggio all’Oro 1990 – a wine which split opinion, some found the nose vegetal and earthy , with fading fruit, others something closer to eucalyptus or menthol, rounded in the mouth, acidity now a side show.  On the way down or over?

Thanks to Decanter and to Banfi for this tasting – probably the best £10 we have spent for a long time!  Banfi’s Brunellos in their current style won’t please the traditionalists.  But they will keep Brunello, this great expression of Sangiovese, in the shop window of the world’s great red wines.