Great Value Montalcino Heritage

Some rules ⚖ are meant to be changed, some (crazy ones) meant to be broken, and some are meant to be respected and followed.

The Appellation rules ⚖ governing the main wine ⛰ regions are all of these 😅🤪 and thus do get subjected to all kinds of arguments at the same time by many enterprising and enthusiastic 🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️ 🙋‍♀️ winemakers.

One such argument, a vote on whether Rosso di Montalcino which is 100% Sangiovese should remain as such or other grape varieties should be allowed went a bit too far. Some driven (commercially 💰 more likely) wineries even put it to vote in the main governing body in Sep 2011. Fortunately, the vote was defeated and we still have Rosso as 100% Sangiovese (for now).

Ofcourse, this is not to say one can't make a great wine by blending Sangiovese from the hills of Montalcino ⛰ with other great varieties. But the argument to still call it a Rosso and link it to the heritage 🔆 is facetious and devoid of logic.

Rosso can be thought of as a second wine for Brunello producers. It brings in the 💵 with an earlier release while the Brunello ages in the cellars & is produced from younger vines from the same vineyards (well mostly, rules to classify a vineyard for Rosso are more relaxed compared to Brunello but a lot of Brunello grape for quality producers goes into Rosso due to severe selection).

These are great value bottles that can be opened with a lot less guilt and a lot more frequently. What we also found was the diff in quality across top producers is a lot less compared to their Brunellos. 

(Only exception are situations where a producer declassifies their Brunello and calls it a Rosso. E.g. Cerbaiona 2015 Rosso which is basically their Brunello harvest).

In the glass Barbi Rosso 2017 has flavors of sweet cherry, a touch of wild flowers and mint on the finish. The wine was rated 90 by Antonio Galloni and is drinking beautifully.

DM/WA 91089395 and these joyous jewels will be headed your way in a jiffy.