2001 Brunello Tasting (Part I)In 2001 the wines of Brunello were blessed with ideal growing conditions. The grapes matured slowly rather than with a quick sprint to ripeness as occurred in 1997. In 1997 , this spurt, caused acidity to drop precipitously and resulted in wines that were in most cases big-scaled and raw due to the astringent tannins from thick skinned (formed due to the heat burst) grapes but low in acid. In contrast the 1999 vintage, an excellent one, produced wines with more structure and less flash and was everything one expects sangiovese to be. The 2001's were touted to have the best characteristics of 1999 combined with the richness of the 1997 vintage. Here at WFCC, this was our first collective look at these wines . Additional wines and personal notes will form Part II of the 2001 Brunello Tasting Notes in January 2007.
Tasting and Scoring :Wines were decanted about 90 minutes prior to being assessed blind. Later, they were re-tasted with food . In addition, some wine from each bottle was left behind to re-taste (3rd assessment) blind the next day. The first score is of the initial tasting, and the second score is the average of the two subsequent assessments.
The Wines: In general, the wines lived up to their advance billing but in some cases there was more of the 1997 character than that of 1999, which was somewhat disappointing. And, even the best wines in this tasting were by no means all that they could be given the superb weather through the growing season.
The Menu:
Elbow Pasta with Braised Umbrian Lentils
Risotto with Wild Turkey Ragu
Boneless Veal Shanks with Pasta”Fregula”
Selection of cheeses: Parmesan (Vache Rosso), Pecorino di Pienza (Val d’Orcia) and Pecorino with Truffle (by Beltrami)
FLIGHT ONE
Uccelliera: Medium dark with orange gradations to the edges; exciting nose of heather and acacias; overall the nose is cool and composed with muted hints of red cherries, anise and leather. Medium full wine which announces itself forcefully and continues in the same vein to a long bright and exuberant finish. The fruit is evidently very ripe but there is superb acid and tannin backbone to provide balance. Delightful with food. Personally I prefer the 1999 version of this wine.
90/90Piancornello ($40): Quite dark– the nose is plummy, forward and quite open revealing a warm personality. Rich extract, soft and velvet-like with spiciness reminiscent of red Hermitage. Fine finish shows little in the way of astringent tannin which makes this an ideal wine to just decant a short while and drink now. Even the next day the wine was soft and plummy and quite broad in the mid-palate. This time it reminded me more of a tempranillo based Spanish wine.. Not perhaps a classic example but this really is a very good and sexy wine.
89/90La Rasina: This is stylistically a cross between the other two wines of this flight. It is rather reserved with jasmine-tea like scents and bright red cherries; even though the wine starts of with a gentle sweetness, it is quickly shrouded by a veil of tannin. Yet the finish is more than just tannic and it does exhibit complexity, even at this stage --- potentially an exciting wine. It is with the food (the lentil course) that this wine really came alive and revealed an abundance of very rich fruit (almost overripe and port-like now) to go with the ripe tannins. There is no denying the excellent quality of this wine.
89/90 FLIGHT TWO
Collosorbo($35): Medium dark; berryish nose like a Zinfandel; jammy , cloying port-like fruit with a short finish. Even with food this was just plain dull. Retasting this wine blind the next day , the adjectives were “Figgy, Structure less and Strawberry Jam”. Definitely would not know it was a Brunello.
85/83Pacenti ($70): Quite dark; rich, smokey, plummy fruit with hints of strawberries and new oak –flashy but in an elegant way. Deliciously forward with soft, silky tannins and good amplitude in the mid palate. The fruit leads the way even in the finish and the tannins in this wine only play a background role. A polished, delicious wine but not profound.
90/89Gorelli “Le Potazzine”($45): Quite dark with almost even color; dark and plummy fruit with hints of acacia and olives– begins with a rich attack but then it restrains itself when it gets to mid-palate ,where there is earthy, truffle accented fruit , and complex flavors in the finish. The real story here is the balance of this wine which is excellent. What it lacks , however, is real depth. Still this merits serious consideration.
91/90 FLIGHT THREE
Mocali “Vigna Raunate”($42): Very dark; the nose soars to meet you with immense aromas of black cherries, leather and a touch of barrique; powerful on entry it dominates the palate with rich fruit that has real depth. Extremely broad and persistent this wine, with its warm, plummy fruit, is coiled with hidden tannins just waiting to explode. Delicious already. This was even better the next day when it remained distinctly regal with power allied with restraint and boasting a long, long finish. Excellent.
This and the Villa Prata in this flight are truly sensational and are a must for any serious collector. 92/94Sassetti -Pertimali ($50): Medium dark color; gamey, barnyardy nose with saddle leather , leading to a comment by Susan Glass that it was a wine that calls for you “to saddle it and ride”. There is still some reduction but strong aeration reveals it be a full bodied wine with juicy fruit that though plummy and slightly cooked still oozes warmth and inviting. It is a quirky individual wine which reminds me of a Raymond Trollat “Saint Joseph” from the eighties. With dinner this was less interesting and seemed a bit over ripe and flat.
92/ 90Villa le Prata ($55): Quite dark with jasmine tea , wild mushrooms and underbrush on the nose. On the palate this wine is almost feathery light but it packs quite a flavor punch. A “lean monk” was one of the quips. Has tremendous zip and a lovely, lovely bright finish. With food it took on some weight but retained its Mozartian elegance. Excellent. Unanimous choice (my score for the Mocali was higher later on) for wine of the evening. A must buy for anyone serious about Brunello.
93/93 FOURTH FLIGHT
Nardi ($50): Medium dark; cocoa, black cherry aromas but essentially the nose is backward and unforthcoming. Medium bodied it flashes little other than structure and the fruit is buried underneath. This is coiled exactly in the reverse manner as the Mocali wine in the 3rd flight. Yet the bright acids and warm feeling on the palate suggests this has excellent potential. A true-blue sangiovese wine. With food, the wine was still lean but now there was evidence of amplitude in the middle. But the next day was most revealing– suddenly the fruit was creamy and the tannins had receded sufficiently to see that the wine was all in balance. It was sneakily delicious. Not a big wine but exquisitely well proportioned.
89/92Baricci ($40): Medium dark; aromas suggest cool mountain air and is totally unrevealing; somewhat reduced; palate was vapid and uninteresting and food did not rescue this somewhat rustic wine. I did not bother to score the wine initially. Unexpectedly, the next day, I was astonished when I re-tasted it blind. There was a lot of herbal, olive scented fruit on the nose and on the palate the wine was sleek, composed and beautifully balanced. This of all the wines (the Nardi included) in the tasting had the best acidity . It was all charm and elegance,- a totally stunning change of character overnight when I had initially pegged it as rustic. This wine simply needs time
?/92La Gerla ($43): Quite dark with orange rim; vanilla nose with sweet jammy fruit . Touch cardboardy. Taut and reserved it is like the Nardi , only hinting of its potential for there is rich fruit which can only be accessed with effort. Remains unresolved even with food. Next day this wine, like the Nardi , improved considerably and showed great aromatics of a cool mountain climate and was tasting far better than earlier. An introverted wine with a tannic cloak and a bright bing cherry finish.
87/89The Winners: As a group these were very good to excellent wines. It was clear the the wines from the northern communes of Montosoli , Montalcino, for instance were, in this tasting, overshadowed by the flashier wines from the south, be it southwest or southeast. But the wines of Nardi, Baricci and La Gerla from northern zones showed far better the next day and it is perhaps a warning not to mark down austerity as a fault in these wines when tasting them.
My favorites included two of the group's top three choices--- Villa Le Prata (#1) and Mocali "Vigna Raunate" (#2), whose proximity on the warmer western flank of the Brunello DOCG zone did not go unnoticed. However, these wines come from sites which are well over 1100 feet and this definitely appears to have had a moderating effect on any possible over ripeness of fruit. My third choice was the Silvio Nardi which did not garner the same praise from the rest of the group, most of whom chose La Rasina as their #3 wine. The best value without a doubt was the Mocali "Raunate".
