BRUNELLO DI MONTALCINO

2015 Padelletti

Grapes Sangiovese Grosso
Colour Red
Origin Italy, Tuscany
Other Practising Organic
Sub-district Brunello di Montalcino
ABV 14%

Padelletti's 6ha, located to the north of the town of Montalcino, are contained in one single plot called Rigaccini. The Brunello is crafted from approximately 30-year-old vines while the older ones go into the Riserva (in the years one is made). This is a transparent and elegant wine that soars in 2015. Fragrant violet, lavender and mint blossom lead the way to a complex palate of succulent red berries, mineral and sous-bois. There is lovely focus, fluid and smooth with fine, powdery tannins that will lend effortless support for at least a decade. Drinking range: 2021 - 2030 Rating: 97 Decanter Magazine (Feb 2020)


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Or, check the RELATED PRODUCTS below for different vintages or wines of a similar style.


Like the Rosso, there's at once a kind of old-school rusticity and then a refined spice and balsam character, and you realise the one could not exist without the other. This is top-of-the-tree old school stuff and undoubtedly has the capacity for very long ageing, but it is already complex and developed, completely haunting. A wine that really sticks in the memory, and the following day we just felt we had to follow this one up.L&S (Mar 2020)

A ripe but vibrant Brunello offering aromas of dried orange peel, lemon drizzle cake, balsamic, tar and baking spices. Primary and energetic on the palate, which is medium-to full-bodied and swathed in wiry, firm tannins that ooze polish and class. Finely framed and delicate on the finish. Drink now. Rating: 93 James Suckling, www.jamessuckling.com (Oct 2020)

Relatively unknown estate but one that has been making wine in Montalcino at least since the 16th century. The approach in the vineyard is organic and the vinification traditional with fermentation in concrete by indigenous yeast and ageing in large oak casks only. This Brunello, showing cool cherry and raspberry fruit with polished tannins, is hugely enjoyable and elegant at the same time. Its long, succulent finish reveals both depth and complexity. Drinking range: 2020 - 2032 Rating: 91 Walter Speller, www.jancisrobinson.com (May 2020)

Padelletti

The Padellettis are one of Montalcino's oldest families, and one with an illustrious past, stretching back into the 13th century at least. In 1529, Giovanni Padelletti, an architect, was given charge of a section of wall and two gates for the defence of the city against the Spanish invaders, and his descendants still own them. Under the Medicis they had to lie low, but by 1576 they are again listed as owning land and vineyards.

Over the centuries the quality of the wines of the area was improving. White grapes, commonly vinified with the red to make the wines drinkable younger, were excluded, and the best wines were aged in barrels made of oak imported from elsewhere, which did not make the wines as tannic as the local chestnut. It was over this time that the wine became known as Brunello, from the tawny-edged colour it took on from long oak-ageing.

The family had a rough time of it in the nineteenth century, many dying young, including Guido, a professor of three universities who died at thirty-five while fighting with Garibaldi, and his brother Dino. However, thanks to the stewardship of his great-uncle Domenico, Guido's son Carlo Augusto inherited a large estate in fine condition.

Carlo Augusto was one of those people you'd like to have met. With four doctorates to his name, he was a diplomat, a judge, a physician as well as being a remarkable industrialist. He by-passed the age of steam to bring electrical power to the region, with internal combustion generators powered by waste from forestry. By 1899 he had lit Montalcino with electricity, and this was followed by electric flour and saw mills, an olive press, and a brick kiln. He built a paper and book-binding industry, and eventually a cinema.

All this time Brunello was produced in tiny volumes, and it became clear that it was the alluvial soils at the foot of the Montalcino hill which produced the best wine. The Padellettis always had vines in the Rigaccini estate, a valley on the north side of the city which slopes down the east side of the fortress, with a soil enriched by volcanic debris from Monte Amiata. From this six hectares they select less than a quarter of the grapes for Brunello, a production of 7-8000 bottles. The wine is fermented in cement tanks and aged in large Slavonian oak casks, in the original cellar in central Montalcino, in Via Guido e Dino Padelletti, under the family's historic house.

This wine isn't currently part of a mixed case, but you can always browse our full selection of mixed cases here.
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