Il Poggione Brunello di Montalcino DOCG

Hi there and welcome to Wine-Searcher. Today I'm looking at a classic Italian wine and that's Brunello de Montalcino Tenuta Il Poggioni, it's the 2017 of that and this is the “ordinary” as opposed to the Reserva version. 

So, Brunello de Montalcino, a wine made from Sangiovese. Based around the town of, not surprisingly, Montalcino. Brunello translated means “little dark one” so that's their pet-name for the grape variety, I guess. Actually, in Montalcino they've isolated a particular clone of Sangiovese which they use. The wine is 100 percent Sangiovese, but it's made from this clone, Sangiovese Grosso which is a large-bunched clone of Sangiovese which gives it its own particular character. The region here is quite hilly, it’s one of the warmest areas in Tuscany - so producing quite a ripe style.

This particular producer, Il Poggioni, was started in the 1870s by the Franceschi family who still own and run the estate. They've got about 140 hectares of vines - so quite a large estate - the estate itself is actually about 500 hectares. They also produce quite a lot of olive oil, I believe. The wines they make - this is made from the the vines they have that are over 20-years old, so the lesser vines will go into a Rosso de Montalcino and they also make an IGT Toscana that goes into that. But one of their top vineyards is planted from plantings that they've selected themselves and so they continue to propagate all their vineyards from this one particular vineyard - so they're quite particular about the planting material they're using as well.

The wine is fermented and then ages, and this is one of the things about Brunello de Montalcino, it has an extended aging period. You have to age Brunello for four years. This has been aged for three years in oak and then for the year in bottle. You have to age for at least two years in oak - a Reserva will age for an extra year, so five years in total, probably four in barrel and one in bottle. So this gives the wine, even on release, quite mature sort of style. The producers here are famed for producing quite a deep, rich style of Brunello and they're highly regarded as a producer in this region.

So, to taste the wine - let's have a look. The first thing you'll notice is that the color is actually relatively pale you can see right the way through, it it's not incredibly deep. There are these ruby tones but the rim is a sort of a garnet, almost starting to brown, color - because of this extended aging. The aging goes on in a large, old French oak barrels so you're not getting, you shouldn't be getting - we'll see - a huge amount of obvious cedary oak influence - it should be more of a question of allowing oxygen
into the wine to soften it. 

So smelling it - immediately there's a sort of a richness, there's a toasty spice and perhaps an underlying earthy note as well. There are red-fruits coming through, there they're not sort of bursting cherry, they're more sort of rich mulberry sort of notes.

Tasting it - you've got good acidity, not necessarily sharp, but decent acidity and counterpointing that a real, sort of bitterness, there's a real concentration as well, so it's just sort of a bitter licorice - roasted herb sort of notes - maybe slightly spicy - but yes, it's that sort of savory and bitter notes coming through there with red-fruit. There's sort of an underlying red-cherry fruit but it doesn't have that it's a bursting ripe roundness, there's a more savory togetherness there. The wine is medium-bodied. Its acidity means that I'm salivating - and also it's showing off that sort of quite drying astringent tannin. There's enough fruit that it's not completely drying my mouth out, but the finish is long and drying, with plenty of complexity. This is a wine that would go with beautiful rich foods, you know, to counterpoint fattiness and there's lovely complexity in there - despite the fact that as a 2017 this is a relatively really recent release. 

It's a wine that hopefully should be able to age for you know 10, 15, 20 years without any issues at all. The lovely richness of that fruit is still showing on my mouth, it's not a bursting richness but it's been accompanied by the astringent tannins and as those are starting to fade, I'm getting this sort of beautiful fresh red fruit left on my tongue. 

So yes, Brunello de Montalcino, an Italian gem! 

Cheers everybody! - Bye now.