Cult wines: large formats coming from Tenuta Greppo Biondi Santi, the cradle of Brunello

The bottles of wine from Tenuta Greppo Biondi Santi, where the legendary Brunello di Montalcino was created at the end of the nineteenth century, have been among the most important Italian wines (commanding top prices in world auctions, and some of the highest prices for Italian wineries), because of the story they tell and the high quality of the wine. Some of the vintages of Brunello di Montalcino Riserva, for instance, the legendary 1955 (the only Italian wine included in the best wines of the twentieth century ranking by the American magazine, “Wine Spectator”), the 1983 or 2012, the last one produced under the guidance of Franco Biondi Santi himself, are genuine cult items, thanks to the unusual practice of filling the bottles. These wines, in fact, have always been bottled “only” in the classic 0.75 liter bottle.
Today, things are changing, instead, because now there is also the Magnum format, which makes its debut with Tenuta Greppo Biondi Santi’s Brunello di Montalcino 2015, an exceptional vintage highly celebrated by Italian and international critics. The wine is coming out of the wine cellar a year later than the normally specified five years of aging, and will also be accompanied by very few 3 and 6 liter bottles of the Brunello di Montalcino Riserva 2013. These formats are, obviously, already at the top of the wish lists of renowned collectors from all over the world.
“We are very satisfied with this decision”, commented Giampiero Bertolini, CEO of Tenuta Greppo Biondi Santi, which has been under the control of the EPI luxury group of the French Descours family for several years, “which did not come from a market request, but because it was a pity that a wine like Sangiovese could not age in large formats. We saw the opportunity and decided to take it. And, this is the reason, therefore, we have made limited productions that are getting extraordinary feedback from collectors and wine-lovers”.
It is a small, but important innovation, therefore, the Tenuta Greppo Biondi Santi winery, where persistence, continuity and consistency are the fundamental values of its history, which is primarily the history of the wine and territory of Brunello di Montalcino.