The Brunello di Montalcino name come from the grape used to produce it. It’s called Sangiovese Grosso and the local name for it is Brunello. So it means the Brunello from Montalcino which is the small town southeast of Sienna in Tuscany which centers all the vineyards. As one of the few Tuscans wine only Sangiovese is allowed in Brunello and the grapes have to be grown inside the designated areas.

The Sangiovese grape matures perfectly in Montalcino and this is one of the reasons why the Brunello di Montalcino is such a great (and expensive) wine. Nowhere else on earth does the Sangiovese grape have better conditions. The area is rather small - even though a lot of new vineyards have been planted the last 10-20 years - and the demand quite high so prices are among the highest in Italy and you will rarely see a quality Brunello di Montalcino below $50.

The production of a Brunello di Montalcino must follow a lot of rules to comply with the DOCG rules. First it must be produced from 100% Sangiovese grown in the Montalcino DOCG. It have to age at least 24 months in cask or oak and another minimum 4 months in bottle before it is released. However it can not be released until its 5th. year after harvest. So vintage 2004 will arrive in the market during 2009. You can also make a riserva - then it has to age one year longer and another 2 months in bottle.

The time in oak/cask has been reduced during the last 10 years. It’s mainly because of more and more producers using new french oak where the wine need shorter time to mature. This brings us to style of the wine.

Brunello di Montalcino wine style

As in many Italian wine districts you have classical  producers and more modern producers and a lot in between. The classical producers, like Case Basse, use big oak cask to mature the wine for a long time. The result is more of finesse, elegance and complexity and the wines needs time to mature and get rid off the tannins. More modern winemakers, like Casanova di Neri, use new oak and produce wines with more upfront fruit, supple tannins and a round and sometimes smooth taste. Both styles and anything in between can be of the greatest quality.

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.