What makes a wine a Baby ‘Brunello’?
Tuscany's Brunello red wines are considered the best of the best, but you can find similar flavors — and quality — at a lower price point by looking for this term.
Students of wine learn early on that many of Europe’s most prestigious wine regions start with the letter B: Burgundy and Bordeaux in France, and Barolo, Barbaresco, and Brunello di Montalcino in Italy. Today’s wine may not have a letter B on the label, but it has its own informal moniker in the trade world that indicates its quality: “Baby Brunello.”
Brunello di Montalcino is a legendary Tuscan wine from the tiny village of Montalcino, located between Florence and Siena. Tuscany’s primary red grape is sangiovese, a variety that was historically cultivated throughout the region as a bumper crop for making affordable Chianti wines. When growers plant new vines, they take cuttings from their healthiest plants, resulting in frequent mutations and genetic variation.
In Montalcino, their local Sangiovese variant is called sangiovese grosso and is quite different from the Sangiovese norm. One might expect the name “grosso” to refer to big berries or fruit clusters, but it actually refers to the bolder flavors that result from making wine with this small-berried clone. Its wines are darker, stronger-tasting, and longer-lived than Chianti wines made with standard sangiovese.
Montalcino wines made with Sangiovese grosso can only be called Brunello if they are aged a minimum of four years before release — with two of those years spend spent in barrels — and made to high quality standards. Rosso di Montalcino wines such as this one are made in a younger, fresher style, but still showcase the complexity and concentration of the sangiovese grosso grape – hence “Baby Brunello.” They’re like the big wine’s little brothers.
Il Poggione is one of the most trusted Brunello producers and their Rosso is extremely well made. Loaded with sour cherry and pomegranate flavors, the wine is bone dry and pairs well with richer foods thanks to a tealike tannic astringency in the finish. It’s the haunting resonance of the wine’s aftertaste, however, that is the clearest signal of the grape’s superiority and the winemaker’s craftsmanship.
Il Poggione Rosso di Montalcino
Tuscany, Italy; 13.5% ABV
PLCB Item #6558 — on sale for $26.09 through May 3 (regularly $29.09)
Also available at: Canal’s in Mt. Ephraim ($23.99; mycanals.com), WineWorks in Marlton ($24.98; wineworksonline.com), and Total Wine & More in Claymont, Del. ($28.99; totalwine.com)
