Brunello di Montalcino DOCG

Gran Selezione sits at the top of the quality hierarchy.

Brunello di Montalcino is made entirely from Sangiovese in the warmer hills around Montalcino.

The wines are full-bodied, high in acidity and tannin, with concentrated red fruit.

Long maturation develops dried fruit, leather and forest fall complexity and increases both ageing potential and price.

Vino Nobile di Montalcino is also Sangiovese-based and is generally structured and age-worthy.

Rosso di Montalcino allows producers to release a younger, fruitier wine without the long maturation required for Brunello.

On the Tuscan coast, Bulgari's warm maritime climate suits Cabernet Sauvignon and other international varieties, and these grapes helped create the high-priced wines known as Super Tuscans.

Toscana IGT gave producers flexibility to use international grapes and winemaking choices outside of the traditional DOC rules, while Bulgari DOC now recognises many of these styles.

So some very famous Italian wines carry the DOCG status.

Think of wines like Barolo Doc G from Piemonte or Brunello di Montalcino Doc G from Tuscany.

or even Chianti Classico Doc G from Tuscany again.

So naturally, one may think, OK, you look at Doc G and think Doc G is higher than D.O.C.

And that's because these wines aren't simply being identified by grape variety.

They're often being identified by place.

Think Barolo or Chianti Classico or Brunello di Montalcino.

These names all tell stories about specific territories, grape growing traditions, production methods, so many different things that represent the identity of a product.

Wow.

The wine is made by Bernardino Sani, who his Brunello di Montalcino, which is where he's from, but his Brunello was Wine Spectator's Wine of the Year a few years back.

Oh,

wow.

They are generally more comfortable spending more on wine.

For this group, classic wine regions are still very important, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, and for Italian wine, particularly Piemonte, Toscana, with such as Barolo and Brunello di Montalcino.

Then, there is a strong high-income consumer segment.

Korea has a significant market for premium and fine wine.

They have these stores, these online channels, for example.

Then Highly priced wines, they have a tunnel.

Again, Barolo, Barbaresco, Brunello, they all have tunnel.

They all have this fine dining restaurants, etc.

He's been drinking a lot of

Brunello.

And I was like, Brunello?

Really? Because I know we've had this conversation.

We've done tastings.

We've done Chianti.

Ray's trying to keep the momentum of the conversation.

He's like, Brunello, really? And I'm like,

And, uh, you know that, uh, the most important wines in the world mainly are the wines where on, in the label we have the name of the area, the name of the region, the name of the terroir.

Could be Bordeaux, as you told before, uh, Champagne, Burgundy, Brunello di Montalcino, Barolo, Barbaresco, Franciacorta, or Trentodoc.

But many, many labels, many, many wines from Italy, they put the brand, the, the main brand in term of communication on the label is the variety.

So Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay, Merlot, Cabernet, Sangiovese.

It's a problem today because, uh, the people doesn't know, uh, Solaris, Souvignier Gris, Soreli, uh, what else.

But one step back, the problem is that we want, in term of marketing, sell the variety.

Because I really believe that, uh, the 99% of the people doesn't know that Brunello di Montalcino comes from Sangiovese, or that Barolo comes from Nebbiolo, or that, uh, Trento DOC is mainly Chardonnay.

The problem is that we want to put the variety on the label.

But Dad, what do you, what do you make of the 49ers' week one win over the Rams? You saw it coming.

I, I, I picked the Rams, cost me a, a Brunello, although I think we're gonna, we're gonna cancel out the Brunellos at this point since we're, we both owe each other one.

Yeah, 'cause I owed you-

Yeah

Non sei convinto.

No, sto pensando perché il lato selvaggio lo voglio prendere e è una parte di, giustamente come un'accezione positiva, perché ho, ho visto Sangiovese ordinati, non andiamo alle altre DOC, Chianti, Brunello di Montalcino, ben studiati e diciamo creati dall'uomo con il contributo della natura.

Il-- La riscoperta del Montecucco, del suo lato selvaggio, è perché rispettiamo questo lato più naturale, Stevie, ma ritrova il suo equilibrio.

La parola più importante del Sangiovese è il suo equilibrio.

È vero, sì, l'abbiamo dato un imprinting.

Ma guarda, veramente se guardi la mappa della Maremma Toscana e il congiungimento con il Brunello, Bolgheri, la piana con i bianchi, il Vermentino, faccio per dire le altre DOC, Morellino di Scansano alla nostra sinistra.

Mancava proprio questo triangolone della DOC Montecucco e poi alla nostra destra il Brunello di Montalcino.

Secondo me è stata la giusta fusione sulla storia del Sangiovese.