One of the most famous Tuscan reds in the world was born from the vineyards of Tenuta Greppo. A great classic that is always worth uncorking, if only to celebrate the arrival of autumn
In Italy there is no winery that is so intimately linked to a wine and a production area like Biondi Santi. If today there is Brunello di Montalcino, the merit is all of Clemente Santi who, in the mid-nineteenth century, tried to vinify the Sangiovese grape in purity, with the idea of giving life to a full-bodied red, which could age for many years. The intuition was revolutionary for those times, so much so that in 1869 his "red wine chosen (brunello)" obtained a medal at the international fair of Montepulciano. A few years later, in the 1888, his nephew Ferruccio Biondi Santi produced the first vintage of a wine that featured on the label "Brunello di Montalcino", the forefather of a glorious story that has other milestones in 1966, when Tancredi, son of Ferruccio, wrote the specification for the production of Brunello, and in 1999, when the American magazine "Wine Spectator" included the Brunello Biondi Santi 1955 among the 12 best wines in the world of the 20th century.
In 2016 the Biondi Santi family found in the French Epi Group, a partner to pursue the set growth targets: huge investments have been allocated for restructuring and expansion both in the vineyard and in the cellar, but the air we breathe at Tenuta Greppo is always that of the family business. Visiting her with the young Tancredi, the seventh generation of the Biondi Santi, was an emotion, especially when she showed us the two surviving bottles of the 1888 vintage. "But will the wine still be good?" It is inevitable to ask. And Tancredi tells “When I was 18, my grandfather uncorked a bottle from the 1891 vintage to celebrate 60 years of marriage; the wine was 118 years old and was perfect. For me it was a thrill to taste a bottle made by people from my family that I could only get to know through photographs ".
Brunello di Montalcino 2013, the vintage currently on the market, has iridescent aromas ranging from ripe fruit to chamomile infusion, from floral to sweet spices, with citrus, menthol and tobacco notes on the finish. On tasting it reveals all the fabric of the great wine, classic, aristocratic, graceful. 2013 is an excellent year that gives satisfaction from now, but the advice is to keep it in the cellar for a long time and uncork it for an important event; as Tancredi's experience suggests, after years of aging in the bottle, the Brunellos di Biondi Santi offer emotion in their liquid state.
Why now: the temperatures are lowering, we toast the arrival of autumn with a great classic.
As did: it is produced with vines that are between 10 and 25 years old; refines for 36 months in cask and for at least 24 months in bottle.
To combine with: the great second courses of meat of the Italian tradition: braised meats, roasts, pigeon, deer, but also structured first courses, such as tagliatelle with game ragù.
Serve it at: 18 ° C
Price: 130 euros.
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