Brunello di Montalcino, 5 “Olympic” stars in 2019, while 2015 conquers critics and the market

The five Olympic circles that become the five colorful stars of the 2019 Brunello di Montalcino vintage, the highest rating, for a year that therefore promises great excellence in the glass, when it will arrive on the market in 5 years. Hoping that, in the meantime, the great Italian sport has stockpiled medals to toast the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Coronavirus permitting, and that it will also do so at the Milan and Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, referred to in the “tile” celebrating the 2019 vintage signed to Benvenuto Brunello by no. 1 of Italian sport, president of CONI and member of the International Olympic Committee Giovanni Malagò. Placed on the wall of the old Palazzo Comunale, together with the others that have been showing the Montalcino grape harvests since 1992, in a painting in which, in the world of Brunello, an exceptional 2015 vintage in the glass and the market, meanwhile, holds more than half already sold on the market in a few months.
“I am a big fan of Italian wine - said Malagò - of bubbles and great reds, such as Brunello di Montalcino. And spend a few minutes alone, choosing the wine I drink alongside what I eat, in the cellar that I built bottle by bottle, with the help of my friend Lorenzo Tersi (one of the leading experts in the mergers & acquisitions sector, at guide of LT Wine & Food Advisory, ed), is something that gives me great serenity and joy”. Less tranquility, however, leaves the news of the spread of Coronavirus, as Malagò himself explains: “I am in contact with the authorities who have the responsibility, the right and the duty to take initiatives and precautions. If there are government authorities and local representations that will make citizens' safety ordinances, the sport must immediately adapt. If there is a demonstration where one of these cases occurs, the sport must stop there.”
Speaking of wine, however, the producers of Montalcino and Brunello are decidedly more serene, both in perspective and in the immediate present. In the first case, to give serenity for the future, it is the 2019 vintage, judged with the highest quality, and which is resting in the barrels. “A year of extraordinary quality for its great balance and aging potential. It is up to our vignerons to make it a great Brunello, “said the president of the Brunello di Montalcino Consortium, Fabrizio Bindocci.
With the producers and the territory that, in the meantime, is enjoying the success of a 2015 vintage, the one in tasting at Benvenuto Brunello and entering the market, already defined historical. A vintage already judged 5 stars immediately after the harvest and which, according to the profile described by the Consortium, after the tasting commission of 40 experts among oenologists and technicians from all over Italy, expresses “intense aromas of ripe fruit, excellent ratio between tannic structure and acidity and long aromatic persistence both on the nose and on the palate, for a thousandth destined to go down in history”. However, above all, a harvest that in less than two months from entering the market, is already half sold: “the Consortium has already distributed 5 million Docg bands”, Bindocci recalled, against an expected production of Brunello di Montalcino 2015 of 10.5 million bottles.
From the organoleptic point of view, underlines the Consortium, “striking above all the tannic structure, soft and in perfect balance with freshness, enriched by characteristic hints of ripe red fruit, both on the nose and taste, closed by a long and elegant finish. A Brunello that will be able to face aging, giving great results even after decades. It is the fruit of a particularly favorable season, which began with a scarcely rainy winter and continued with temperatures substantially in the average and low rainfall, which brought the plants in the excellent vegetative balance until the summer, without the onset of phytosanitary problems. In July, the raising of the column above average anticipated the veraison phase, but the situation recovered with the rains at the end of the month, before moving on to an August characterized by an excellent temperature range between night and day, which had an important influence on the skins, concentrating the aromas and dry extract. Finally, September and October brought limited rainfall and good ventilation, which favored the final stages of the ripening of the grapes until the harvest. The natural acidity in the harvested grapes is immediately noticeable, above average even for a vintage characterized by high summer temperatures, a first evident sign of the high and rare quality level of Brunello di Montalcino 2015, together with the complexity of aromas and elegance of tannins, already evident in the grapes”. A path in the vineyard and the cellar that has led to great wines to be enjoyed immediately, or to be left in the bottle for a few years, perhaps waiting for the future vintages of the greatest red wine of Tuscany.