BRUNELLO DI MONTALCINO
2016 Riserva Padelletti
The Padelletti 2016 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva is the most delightful release I have yet to taste from this historic winemaking family. No doubt there are many other great wines in this estate's past, given that it started making wine 500 years ago. (Wouldn't it be nice if all those past vintages were kept somewhere in a secret underground vault for us to taste?) This is a soft and silky expression that spreads evenly over the palate with tension and gentle firmness. A succession of wild berry, cherry, blue flower and earthy aromas ends with nicely integrated acidity. Drinking range: 2024 - 2045 Rating: 96 Monica Larner, The Wine Advocate (www.robertparker.com) (Feb 2022)
* This is a pre-shipment/primeur offer. All orders are accepted under the TERMS of this offer which differ from the terms of the rest of the site.
The 2016 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva grumbles up from the glass like a sleeping giant disturbed from a nap. Beneath an air of white smoke and crushed rocks, a stimulating core of black cherries, plums and sweet spice can be found. This exudes elegance from the first sip, coasting a silken wave of ripe red berries and licorice across the palate, as a grippy core of saline-minerals and brisk acids adds tension toward the close. It reveals its tannic heft through the finale, along with a good deal of primary concentration; yet it still remains remarkably fresh, as hints of lavender and violet pastille linger. Brava, Padelletti; the 2016 Riserva is gorgeous. Drinking range: 2026 - 2038 Rating: 96 Eric Guido, www.vinous.com (Dec 2021)
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.
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Wines bought en primeur are scheduled to arrive in the UK over the course of the next eighteen months. If you do not wish to take home delivery, you may wish to consider where you would like the wines shipped on arrival in the UK. Lea & Sandeman offers duty paid and in bond storage through a dedicated storage company called Elephant Storage. For more details on the terms and fees associated with storage please go to our Storage Homepage or contact our primeurs team for more information.
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2023 LATEST ITALIAN RELEASES OFFER FAQ
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