Saturday afternoon TNs: Four Brunelli

Gorgeous sunny day in the Delaware Valley today, and I’ll be grilling up some pork and polenta later today, so I decided to go with some of my stock from Brunello. I posted a thread a couple weeks back on 2009 Chianti - this was a hot vintage in Chianti, and in general, the wines haven’t aged all that well. So today I decided to pair up 2009’s from two of my favorite producers with their wines from more classic vintages. And while it was true that the 2009 Salicutti Tre Vigne was the weakest wine of the quartet, the 2009 Stella was an eye-opening example of the winemaker transcending the limitations of the vintage. And to be honest, none of the four wines would be thrown out of bed for eating crackers, so a good start to the weekend!


  • 2004 Podere Salicutti Brunello di Montalcino Piaggione - Italy, Tuscany, Montalcino, Brunello di Montalcino (6/13/2020)
    Serious Brunello at peak here today. While palates differ, for “honest” Brunello I have always felt that 15 years after the vintage is a real sweet spot.

A brooding nose with red and black fruit and some balsamico as well. Still a tannic bite on the finish, so it’s possible that this wine could improve some more, but it’s lively today and drinking very well.

Oh my, gorgeous on the palate. Seemingly a larger scaled wine than the '09 I just tried, yet still precisely balanced and focused on the palate. Delicious really doesn’t do this wine justice - let me simply say that I am very glad I have more!

Focused on the palate, light- to medium-bodied, good acidity and persistence. One hell of a wine given the vintage. I believe this was the first year where Stella released her Brunello as a Riserva, and while I don’t think too highly of the vintage overall, this is one delicious wine.

Decent acidity for the vintage, and nicely balanced. I don’t see this improving much with additional time, but what it is today isn’t bad at all.

Posted from CellarTracker

Thanks for the notes, Bob,

I’ve always been a big fan of '04 Brunello–some of which I still have. Are the '06’s, generally speaking, their equals?

Can’t say, Joshua. For reasons I can no longer recall, I didn’t buy much from the '04 vintage.

I do think that '01, '04, '06 and '10 are the four best vintages for Brunello in that decade, but I’m not sure how I would rank them other than to say I’ve had a lot of nice wines from each year.

Quite a Saturday Bob. Hope you had reinforcements. Have the Stella Rossi and Brunelli always been so pricey?

RT

Rich, while they have never been bargains, the rate of price escalation has seemingly increased over the past 2-3 years, and actually tracking them down has become more of a chore as well. This is exacerbated by the fact that this is a pretty small producer - usually less than a 1,000 cases of Brunello, and between 500-1,000 cases of Rosso. All that said, I generally buy as much as I’m offered, as the style of her wines really hits my sweet spot.

Thanks for the great notes Bob. Stella di Campalto is a producer I am interested in trying.

Cheers,