Ciacci Piccolomini d’Aragona’s Brunello di Montalcino is one of the great discoveries not to miss from the now coveted 2010 vintage. James counts their single-vineyard Pianrosso bottling among the year’s finest examples (click here for his full notes and score), yet its price is far from proportionate to its quality.
Here Paolo Biancini, owner and winemaker at Ciacci, expounds his views on what he describes as “the type of year that you gladly remember”. He admits that at first the growing season proved difficult, but that everything came to fulfilment in the summer. He goes so far to say that the late ripening period made the sangiovese grape’s color reminiscent of such international grape types as syrah or merlot.
He doesn’t divulge whether 2010 might be the greatest vintage for Brunello of all time, preferring to hold judgement for another 10 years or so, but he does also share an interesting comparison of the vintage with 2006 and 2007.
-JMS
