The Best of Modern Brunello

I have been many times to Chianti, between Florence and Siena, but only in more recent years to Montalcino and the gloriously scenic and much-photographed Crete Senese south of Siena and the equally if not more picturesque Val d’Orcia south of Montalcino. Perhaps because of this, but also the fact that corporate dinners sometimes involved less expensive, commercial and often large production Brunello, my bias was more towards the bricky, lighter elegance of Chianti than the sometimes dark chocolate Napa-wanabee weight of Brunello. But older age, changing times and better wines have radically altered my opinion. Too much Gran Selezione Chianti is on steroids and made (I suspect) to impress the Trans-Atlantic gurus of taste, and equally too much straight Chianti now includes French grape varieties to bump up the colour, alcohol and much else. Why you want to pollute a centuries old local Chianti legacy with the now ubiquitous Cabernet or Merlot defeats me, the world is already awash with it. Big is not always better, and yet so it goes on.

But Brunello must be made from Brunello (ie Sangiovese Grosso) so you can’t chuck in any beefy foreign stuff (and the 2008 ‘Brunellogate’ scandal caught out those that had been doing so, and after lengthy debate it was agreed that Brunello and Rosso were thankfully to be 100% Sangiovese by law). So whilst I’d be wary of those dark, densely coloured behemoths of the ‘90’s (many of which have fallen apart now and were perhaps not all pure Sangiovese), modern day Brunello is exactly what it says on the label.

And hence my preference has shifted, greatly helped by the fact that the modern trend in Montalcino, or at least some of the newer domains and the current stars, focuses far more on organic viticulture, low extraction, ageing in traditional large old botti (no small French barriques) and a search for elegance and typicity over points and blockbuster flavours.

Hurrah and hurrah.

Of course, I am here talking about the higher echelons of the crop, not the vast expansion of vineyard land down far below the town on the plane at low altitudes which has seen Brunello production soar, but not to heights of great fancy. To get the best wine you need altitude, northerly aspects or cooling night temperatures and breezes from the Orcia river as well as a light foot on the winemaking pedal. And happily, there is plenty of that available.

When I first discovered the delights of Italian wine in the ‘80’s, Biondi-Santi was founder, father and THE domaine in Montalcino. Now it has been bought by the French, prices are very elevated and even if it seems to be mandatory to have dusty old (empty) bottles in your restaurant or wine shop window, I don’t hear good things and it’s interesting that older vintages seem more prized (& priced) than recent ones. It is the historic icon, but whether it remains the gustatory one I doubt. Perhaps that’s merely Italian pride muttering against another Gallic invasion, but at current prices I don’t really care.

I have great respect for the renowned US sommelier turned wine maker Rajat Parr, and his pick of top Brunelli is short: Pian dell Orino, Le Ragnaie, Il Paradiso di Manfredi, Poggio di Sotto, Stella di Campalta and Salvioni. Sadly, the last three are now over 200 euros for the straight Brunello and though a 2004 Salvioni (and Biondi-Santi) were classy and delicious last summer with a mix of wild cherries, earth and herbs, plus a touch of meaty age, they are now for luckier folk than I.

I do love the Rosso di Montalcino from Poggio di Sotto though, and buy it when I see it, a gentle mixture of roses and caramel, red fruit and flowers, seemingly more Burgundian than Tuscan and still good value as it’s far more floral and elegant than most standard Brunello. Delicious.

It’s a lovely domain, and the 2008 Brunello bought a while ago at the estate (I was majorly miffed on discovering that the enoteca in Greve in Chianti sold it for less!) was a revelation last week: a pale red colour with bricking edge that made me think more or ageing Pinot than hefty Brunello and aromatics that floated out of the glass like the perfume from a rose bed. Wild cherries, flowers aplenty, a touch of caramel from the wood, a hedgerow of red fruit and a stony finish. Soft, super elegant and silky. It was ripe but not sweet, flavourful but not dense, a truly delicious orchestration of different tastes and smells. And this was just the Brunello, not the Riserva. Certainly, the best Brunello we’ve had and one of the nicest reds in a long time (and, if I am to be fair through gritted teeth, far better bang for your buck than most Cote de Nuits Burgundy or big label Bordeaux…).

In a splendid wine restaurant in Lucca (Osteria di Pasquale), the very colourful, wine-loving owner offered me his last bottle of 2015 Fuligni, (which was not on the wine list), the same Brunello estate suggested by the lovely owner of the best restaurant in Montalcino (Albergo Il Griglio), and you’d be a fool not to take well informed local advice. Indeed, this is one of the things I so love about Italy – sommeliers (and/or restaurant owners) who know their wines and wine lists intimately, proffer valuable advice and charge you often below retail prices for what’s always a great value choice. If only London, Paris and New York (etc) could do likewise.

Anyway, Fuligni is indeed the real thing, that taste of wild cherries and something earthy, still a few tannins at a youthful ten years old, but nothing rough. Classy. And not going to break the bank. It (as Il Paradiso) sits more to the northern side of Montalcino which perhaps adds to its graceful weight. Above all, these wines combine floral elegance with red fruited richness, avoiding any suggestion of southern heat.

After that our restaurant drinking, by chance, fell upon Le Ragnaie, a new, organic winery founded in 2003 below Montalcino but high up (though they have vineyards also on the northern side and ‘way south’ in Castelnuovo dell’Abate (as do Poggio and Stella Di Campalta, one of the very few biodynamic wineries here along with Pian). Sadly, I can’t give a description of all their various single vineyards (they have 28 hectares in all, ranging from 200m to over 600m in altitude, such as Fornace, Petroso, Casanovina Montesoli) but I can of their VV (Old Vines) and the highest vineyard in town, Passo del Lume Spento at 621 metres.

The 2017s offered a fascinating comparison between the two ends of the age spectrum, the VV at 50 and the Passo at 16 (it was their first vintage as the rules only changed in 2016 to allow Brunello planted at over 600 metres). The Passo, at a remarkably gentle 13.5%, was just a bed of flowers and red fruit, some tannins but at the ethereal end of Brunello (if you like Barolo, think of Burlotto, rather like the Poggio). Truly splendid. The VV at 14.5% (though only a stone’s throw away but just below the 600m threshold) was darker, denser and more brooding – the flavour profile was similar, but this was more powerful and needed at least another 5 years to show at its best. Which was interesting as a couple of nights later we had the 2013 which had also only 13.5% alcohol and was like a mixture of the two above. I can’t wait to taste the rest of the Ragnaie range of single crus (Euros 120-140) though I hope I don’t have to wait until my dotage to do so as the few I have managed to load into our cellar are still way too young. These are not cheap wines (but what are?), but they exude class and elegance in a very Italian way.

The Rosso though is remarkable value at under 30 euros (in Montalcino), so half the price of Poggio or Pian, two wines that we like a lot. So how does it stand up, a bargain from a star estate or an also ran?

Rosso can be such a useful wine – it’s still 100% Sangiovese since those thankful decisions/regulations in 2008/2011; it’s much cheaper than Brunello; you don’t need to store it a decade plus plus; it’s lower in alcohol and a bit fresher, lighter and friendlier. When well made (ie not trying to be ‘baby Brunello) it’s just a really nice and good value wine.

Le Ragnaie certainly fits the bill. Indeed, the nose of enticing wild cherry and floral red fruit gives you a lot of Brunello for your Rosso price. You throw in some black licorice and bitter almond, refreshing orangey acidity and you have more than you might expect.  The finish is still a bit hard, maybe the wine, maybe the youth (2020) but this was a wine that made me very annoyed that our car was so full that I bought just the one bottle. Next time…

By the way, apart from the restaurants with great sommeliers, the wine shop enotecas (such as Franci and the large Enoteca di Piazza in Montalcino) let you grab a bottle off the shelf and drink it with food at no extra mark up. As said, if only the rest of the world would follow suit.

Which leads us to one of our favourite winemakers, Jan Erbach and his charming wife Caroline at Pian dell Orino. It always amuses me that if you type in Pian dell Orino, the satnav actually deposits you at some very imposing gates behind which you can glimpse an impressive tree-lined avenue leading up to none other than Biondi-Santi.  This is hallowed terroir. Pian dell Orino is their neighbour.

I have written about them before, but here we have passion, humility and an almost religious attention to detail, but wrapped in with a sense of humour. When we turned up, Jan immediately asked if we wanted to see the garden, both herbs and roses. As we drove in, the air was fragrant with the honeyed smell of the ubiquitous acacia trees, pendulous with white blossom hanging like albino bunches of grapes. At the gate the perfume switched to a large, cascading bush of pink roses, and yes, the garden is just a profusion of colour and scent. A man who treats his flowers with this much care and success, well, imagine what the vines look like…

Which might in fact surprise you. Yes, there are many traditional rows of course, though trained far higher than most and not topped off but left to grow (a trend that is becoming expensively cultlike and popular in Burgundy after the high priestess of biodynamics and magician Madame Bize-Leroy). But that was not our subject of interest, nor the neighbour’s old vines interspersed with thyme. What we wanted to see was how his experimental vineyard was coming along.

We crossed the road which for some reason the sat navs think is the main tourist route to the Val d’Orcia (it’s not, and Jan often has to drag out his tractor to haul out yet another tourist in a hire car stuck in the mud on the vertiginous slope). We passed a field of wild gladioli and orchids and there it was, a small vineyard where the grapes are trained along and up trees. It’s an ancient Etruscan tradition, now using plum and mainly maples (they used to use elm until Dutch elm disease). Wild vines climb up trees after all, and planting trees is nowadays becoming popular for biodiversity, shade and the symbiotic relationship of tree, vine roots and mycorrhizae underground. Over in the traditional vineyards his team were cleaning the vines – removing excess growth or bunches that were just too big and checking the eye and cane for next year’s crop (which starts to grow now but fruits a year later).

You could talk to Jan for ages, but he is a busy man and has better things to do than chatter with us, so I’d say let the wines – the two Brunelli and the Rosso, do the talking for him. You really wont regret it. I see that his basic 2019 Brunello Vigneti del Versante scored up to the perfect 100 points and comes in about the same price as Le Ragnaie. Something to wait and look forward to for my 75th birthday?!

Last year my wife announced that she now preferred Brunello to Barolo, that the tannins were softer and less aggressive when young, and after tasting these few wines above, well I do very much see her point, (though on the drive down we tasted Burlotto’s Barolo Acclivi 2015 from Verduno, again in a restaurant at about half retail price, and with competition like that I think one needs to let the two greats of Italy stand proud side by side, and forget meaningless comparisons).

I also suspect that the less extracted style of these wines doesn’t need the same ageing as the more traditional old ones. Years ago, I bought a 1995 Biondi-Santi but when finally opened it was corked. As it was my only bottle I wrote to them, and they not only replied but apologised that they could not longer replace it with a 2005 Brunello (as they had no stock) but asked if a 2005 Riserva would be acceptable. Fantastic – but I suspect that it’s only now, aged 30, that it's properly ready to drink. From our recent happy experience, I’m not sure you need to wait that long, and fifteen would seem a perfect age, with many vintages being approachable younger.

Anyway, I am now on a search for more traditional, elegant Brunello, so if anyone happens to be wishing to share a 2010 from the above winemakers