BRUNELLO DI MONTALCINO

2017 Padelletti

EN PRIMEUR

With vineyards in the Canalicchio zone just north of the town of Montalcino, Padelletti credits the calcareous clay soil for curbing water stress. Harvest dates and quantities were similar to the average and slightly shorter macerations and cooler fermentations were applied to preserve freshness. The 2017 is very discreet at first – which isn’t unusual - but then opens up with pretty perfumes of balsamic herbs, dry earth and even preserved cherries. The palate is lively and pretty, with powdery and finessed tannins. Denser than Padelletti’s wines usually show, this has more perceptible dry extract but is still ever so classy. Rating: 94 Decanter Magazine (Mar 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.

Just mid ruby. Balsamic nose with a suggestion of minerals and gingerbread. Supple cherry fruit and bags of fine tannins. Elegant and with an impressive, layered finish. Drinking range: 2023 - 2030 Rating: 17 Walter Speller, www.jancisrobinson.com (Feb 2022)

The 2017 Brunello di Montalcino shows dried raspberry and cherry, with hints of baked fruit, earthy terracotta and clay. These more robust aromas can definitely be associated with the hot and dry conditions present in this growing season. However, that Padelletti house style that prizes elegance and graceful fruit is also front and center. This wine cozies up the senses with silky softness and smooth lines. Drinking range: 2024 - 2040 Rating: 94 Monica Larner, The Wine Advocate (www.robertparker.com) (Feb 2022)

The 2017 Brunello di Montalcino wafts up with a classic bouquet of dusty dried cherries, rubbed sage and hints of underbrush and worn leather. It’s elegant yet light on its feet, presenting a pure display of bright red berries and savory spices, as an air of balsam herbs forms toward the close. The tannins are surprisingly well-rounded for this vintage, as the 2017 tapers off lightly structured with rosy florals, minerals and a lovely freshness that makes it very easy to return to the glass for more. While Sara Rossi of Padelletti spoke of the difficulties of the vintage and the work done in the vineyards and winery to counteract it, she also explained that production was average, which makes me wonder just how much fruit Padelletti doesn’t use in a normal year. That said, this is a total success for the vintage. Drinking range: 2024 - 2029 Rating: 93 Eric Guido, www.vinous.com (Dec 2021)

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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