James Suckling, Wine Spectator magazine’s voice of authority on Italian wines, recently panned the 2002 vintage of Brunello di Montalcino on the magazine’s Web site. Well, “panned” isn’t exactly the word for it. He said his examination of the new vintage, which should be reaching U.S. shelves and wine lists this spring, was “one of the worst tastings I have done … in a long time … a shocker.” He said most of the wines, which typically retail in the high double digits if not over $100 a bottle, “were diluted and uninteresting.”
As it turned out, Suckling posted his rant two days after I returned from Montalcino and the annual festival “Benvenuto Brunello,” which welcomes the new release and celebrates the most recent harvest. Montalcino is a picture postcard hilltop town in southern Tuscany, about a 90-minute drive southeast of Florence, and on a clear day almost in sight of Siena if your eyesight is really keen and you stand on the top of a turret of the town fortress. Every other door seems to house an enoteca, a pastry shop or a restaurant. My kind of town, in other words.
Brunello di Montalcino has its own DOCG, or denominazione di origine controllata garantita, the Italian appellation system. By law, to be called Brunello the wine must be grown and produced in the district surrounding Montalcino from a specific clone of the Sangiovese grape known as Sangiovese grosso. It must be aged at least two years in oak casks and at least four months in the bottle, and cannot be sold until the fifth year after the vintage. There are some stylistic differences between wines made in the northern part of the district, which tend to be traditional and leaner, and the slightly warmer zone south of the town, where the wines are often lush and more modern in style. And of course, vintners differ in their use (or not) of small French barrels in addition to the traditional large casks made of Slovenian oak. Brunello has achieved cult status in recent decades, and each new vintage is greeted with great anticipation, at least by the wine magazines.
So, what’s up with the 2002? That year was ideal in Tuscany until late August, just before harvest, when heavy rains hit the region and just wouldn’t let up. Vintners dropped fruit frantically, and threw away a lot of their crop trying to salvage some of good quality. Many wineries did not produce a Brunello at all that year, “declassifying” all their wine into their less expensive Rosso di Montalcino. I tasted many that I liked, but to be honest, I don’t have the perspective that Suckling has from tasting several Brunellos every year. While I liked these wines, I would not regard them as good value for the price.
Even the Consorzio del Vino Brunello di Montalcino, the trade association of wineries that sponsors Benvenuto each February, acknowledges that 2002 was only a “fair” vintage, giving it two stars out of five on its rating scale. The most recent two-star vintage before that was 1992, and the last one-star rating was awarded to the 1984 — so yes, 2002 was an inferior vintage.
There was some good news from the festival. Riservas from the four-star 2001 vintage, also new releases, are quite good, if you can afford their exorbitant prices. The 2006 vintage, which we won’t get to taste for another four years, was awarded the top rating of five stars with much fanfare and excitement.
And here’s some good news for restaurateurs who like to feature value on their wine lists. The Rosso di Montalcino from the 2005 vintage (also four stars) were uniformly excellent. Rosso tends to be wine from younger vines or some over-production, sort of a mini-Brunello, only fruitier because they aren’t aged as long. Rosso can be good in poor years, when wineries dump all their juice that would have gone into Brunello into their Rosso, and in great years, when weather smiles and the crop is uniformly good. (Don’t neglect Rosso di Montepulciano, from one hill town over!)
A good Rosso should wholesale for about $20 a bottle so it can fill a niche on your list in the $50 range. If your distributor still has some Rosso from 2003 (four stars) or 2004 (five), these should be beauties, too.
You’ll want to taste these for yourselves, of course, but some of my favorite producers include: Valdicava, Tenute Silvio Nardi, Tenuto Oliveto, Tenementi Angelini — Val di Suga, Talenti, Castello Banfi, Castello Romitorio, Col d’Orcia, San Filippo, Il Poggione, Mastrojanni, Poggio Antico, Fuligni and La Fiorita.
Santé!
