On Sunday we took a day trip to Montalcino (37 km south of Siena). You can read about the day here. One of the great attractions of Montalcino is it's wine, namely Brunello.
When we first got to Montalcino, we stopped and had some lunch. With lunch we had a bottle of Rosso di Montalcino, the other main DOC from Montalcino, and often called "the other Brunello." This wine is required to be 100 percent Brunello but has far fewer aging restrictions, except that it cannot be released prior to September 1st of the year following the vintage.
After lunch we headed over to the Rocca (the giant castle-esque structure in Montalcino) where they have a very large enoteca filled with wine, mostly Brunello. Here is a shot of one of the walls of wine.
After visiting the enoteca and choosing to not to buy any wine there, we went on to another more reasonably priced enoteca to buy a bottle of Brunello. Here is Reed picking out the wine:
And the winner is.......
It was very good and we brought the bottle home so that Reed can soak it and take off the label: this will be the first label in his wine book that I bought him for Christmas!
Interestingly, Montalcino has one of the warmest climates in all of Tuscany meaning that the grapes here ripen before those of Chianti Classico and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. Even within the Montalcino area, there are different micro-climates on the Northern and Southern slopes of the hill Montalcino is on: the northern slopes receive fewer hours of sunlight and are generally cooler than the southern slopes. As a result, vineyards planted on the northern slopes tend to produce wines that are racier and more aromatic, while the southern slopes tend to produce wines with more power and complexity. The top producers in the area have vineyards on both slopes, and make use of a blend of both styles (per Wikipedia).On Saturday we are heading north to the Chianti region. It should be interesting to learn more about the wine in this area!
