Montalcino has a long wine making history. From sources in the 16th. century it is told that Montalcino had good Vermiglio red wine and is known and famous for its sweet (white) wine made of the zibibbo grape. Around 1850 Giuseppe Anghirelli, Tito Costanti, Camillo Galassi and Clemente Santi began experimenting with different vinification methods and selecting clones - even though they did not know at that time what a clone was.
In 1842 the name brunello was used for the sangiovese grosso grape for the first time as well as for the wine and in 1856 and onwards Clemente Biondi Santi made a wine called Brunello. However, the one who are credited for being the father of Brunello is the grandchild of Clemente, Ferruccio Biondi Santi. He dropped other grapes than sangiovese and introduced long term aging in barrels.
The Brunello wine became more and more popular and in the beginning of the last century more winemakers joined Biondi Santi: Guido Angelini, Barbi/Colombini and Sant’ Angelo (now splitted into Col d’Orcia and Il Poggione).
But in the 1930’s the Phylloxera came to Montalcino and ruined the vineyards. In 1929 there were 925 ha (2,300 acres) of vineyards and 1,243 ha (3,100 acres) with a mix of vines and others crops. In 1969 those figures were only 47 ha (118 acres) with vineyards and 70 ha (175 acres) mixed!
Today you have appr. 2.000 ha of vineyards in Montalcino but some are only for Rosso and not for Brunello.