2011 Brunello di Montalcino
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Tasting notes
Poured at a retrospective tasting going back to 1999 held at Gramercy Tavern in NYC. Small harvest, reduced by the need to pick berry-by berry; made only 60–70% as much as usual; 2,000–3,000 bottles of this wine. Aged 42 months. This manages to stay in the red-fruit world (cherry and strawberry) even while there’s a ripe, syrupy/raisined edge to that fruit. It must be the acidity, which is bright and a little wild. It could use a little more focus; the acidity seems to wander off in many directions, leaving a little cloying sweetness behind. (TQT)
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Monica Larner, Wine Advocate
The Wine Advocate
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The 2011 vintage represents the first growing season farmed by its current owner, Claudio Tipa, and the ColleMassari team. The previous owner, Piero Palmucci, started the season by dropping fruit, and this helped push ripening forward. However, this vintage is remember for the hard work required to bring clean fruit into the winery. "Each cluster took about five minutes to trim and clean," says winemaker Luca Marrone: "This was one of the most expensive vintages ever because of all the cutting required." The 2011 Brunello di Montalcino has a sweet theme that comes from hot weather and sirocco winds that blew hot like a hair dryer throughout the summer. The vines were left with ripening fruit and no leaves, and some of the berries dried on the vine. The grapes were completely destemmed to avoid bitterness. (Since 2014, the winery has been working with whole berries.) This wine shows surprising freshness, nonetheless, and it is in terrific form today. There is a tannic pinch at the end, but the wine remains ample and generous in terms of mouthfeel. It's not overripe per se, but it is quite broad.
The 2011 Brunello Di Montalcino stands out as an outlier in this lineup from Poggio Di Sotto, but it offers a lot of pure pleasure and is holding up and showing very well. It offers the most open, floral, and Grenache-like sensibility, pouring a bright ruby hue and revealing aromas of baked strawberries, rosewater, and herbes de Provence. Rounded on the palate, it’s medium-bodied, with ultra-fine, sweet tannins, a boisterous, joyful personality, and hallmark notes of juicy tangerine through the finish. It might not be the longest-lived of the wines in this tasting, but it sure is fantastic now and should continue to provide solid drinking over the coming 8-10 years.
The 2011 Brunello di Montalcino is darkly alluring with dusty dried flowers and earth tones that add a signature of early maturity as sweet spices and crushed blackberries find lift through a whiff of mentholated herbs. This is round and soothing on the palate, with ripe red and black fruits that swirl across a stream of juicy acidity as hints of tart cranberry add tension toward the close. The 2011 finishes long and staining, with fully resolved tannins yet still fresh, leaving cocoa and lavender notes to fade slowly. Time is not on the side of the 2011, yet it’s showing beautifully today. The purchase of Poggio Di Sotto was taking place around the same time as harvest, and as a result, the fruit was picked over a week later than intended. As a result, the new owners did the best they could, making a berry-by-berry selection. Yet, in the end, this is not representative of the approach at Poggio di Sotto.
About the producer
There are few names in Brunello di Montalcino that rank higher than Poggio di Sotto. The estate's obsession with clonal quality, combined with its incredibly elegant winemaking style has garnered a loyal fanbase.