TN: 2007 Azienda Agraria Lisini Brunello di Montalcino

WINE TALK
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2007 Azienda Agraria Lisini Brunello di Montalcino

Translucent ruby, with slight bricking at the edges. Initially some funk which recedes with time.
Nose reveals pure and restrained red cherry fruit, cranberry, green leaf, chalk, and cool mint. Very elegant and elusive in its aromatics.
The palate is mediumbodied and solidly structured, with a very attractive purity in its featherlight cherry expression, and its velvety balsam notes. Over time, more tobacco and spices unfurls on the midpalate but Flavors are compact at this stage and covered with brisk acidity.
Finish is dominated by fruitderived and slightly drying tannins
This is a complete antithesis to the ripeness of the vintage, very elegant, feminine, lean, and balanced. It evolves in the glass effortlessly so my guess is it needs maybe 3-4 more years to unfurl its flavors and shake off some tannic bite. 91p

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I love Lisini. Classic, elegant wines from great terroir, and I think very fairly priced for their quality (I got the 2007 BdM for around $35@ on a JJ Buckley sale, but even the usual $50-60 price for their wines is good value for the quality).

It’s a great place to visit if you’re in Montalcino. The place is very much like the wines: unadorned, great sense of antiquity and tradition to it.

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I bought the bottle when visiting montalcino last summer. Unfortunately time constraints prevented me from visiting the estate so i bought the bottles from an enoteca. I tasted the wine at the enoteca, and it was much more forward than the bottle i tasted today. I have saved half for tomorrow maybe it will unfurl a bit more.

I agree with you on the quality and sense of terroir from Lisini. I adore the chalky minerality, the cool mint and the balsam notes i find in the restrained traditionel brunello’s and this bottle has al the right stuff in spades, it just needs more time to develop imho. I find the same flavor profile and style in Poggio di Sotto and Biondi Santi, and relatively speaking Lisini certainly is a good QPR. I have yet to try the Ugolaia, something i look forward to indeed.

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I’ve really enjoyed the Ugolaia. While many BdMs don’t, in my opinion, really benefit from the extra barrel time for being a Riserva, I haven’t found that the Ugolaia is overoaked or overdone.

It is a more concentrated and powerful wine than the regular bottling, but not, I’ve thought, in the way of being very oaky or heavy or losing its sense of place.

I’ve had the 94, 99 and 01 Ugolaia, each once or twice, so not a ton of experience with it, but maybe enough to have a sense of the wine.

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Chris, thanks. I have only heard good about the ugolaia, but i have limited experience with riserva’s in general as i tend to avoid them due to the cost and the general consensus that they often are not worth it. I have bought some though, from fuligni, Giannni brunelli, and Il poggione, but have only tried the Giannni Brunelli so far, which i liked. Ugolaia is on my list.

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Thanks for the note Mattias! Lisini is a really great producer and I have found them able to make good wines almost every year and I find this quite remarkable :slight_smile: and in the good years like 04 the Ugolaia is simply striking as well as the normale! Regarding the price one could say that the producer is somewhat underrated but hey I really like the pricing so let’s keep the secret [dance-clap.gif]

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Lisini is among my favorites. The 2006 needs lots of time. Ugolaia?? I thought that was only a single vineyard wine and not labelled as a Riserva?

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You are right, it is not labelled as riserva and is indeed a single vinyard bottling. It is actually not aged longer in Botti than the normale, But i think it is normally released later than the normale bottling.

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I thought this was their attempt at a “modern” Brunello in that I thought it was barrique aged too. If they are at Benvenuto, I’ll ask.