Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm your host, Kristen. I've got two lovely gentlemen with me today in the room. I've got Greg Verish. What's up, Greg? Hey, how are you doing? I've got Patrick Brophy. Hey, dude. Hey, how are you? Good. Hey, I'm really good because it's noon on a Thursday, and I get to talk about Brunello di Montalcino. Can't get much better than that. Brunello di Montalcino. Pat, it's a lovely wine from Tuscany, probably one of two more iconic wines from Italy, Brunello and Barolo. Those are kind of like the kings. Those are like- They're the expensive Italian wines. Even I know that and I know nothing about wine. Yeah, they're the collectible, high-end, expensive, super-aged apex of quality in the boot of Italy. Tuscany, I think in terms of tourism, wine tourism is kind of more akin to Napa Valley for the Italians. Everything is very well-manicured. That's where a lot of the more well-known wines come from. That's where a lot of the tourists gravitate towards. Is it all Brunello in Tuscany or do they make other wines there as well? They make many other wines, quite a few, actually. You might know Chianti, right? Kind of a rustic version of a wine, red wine that's made with the same grape, Sandrovese. They do super Tuscans there. Those are primarily Bordeaux blends that are done in Tuscany. I have to say, if we do a super Tuscans cast, that would be a dream for me just because I love the way the Bordeaux varieties perform in Tuscany, especially on the Tuscan coast. The wines are fantastic. But they do whites, they do Vermentino, they do a Vernaccia there, but it's primarily red. I want to say about 89 percent red wine production out of the region of Tuscany. Chianti is going to be the lion's share. It's the most famous. Chianti's can range from $6 on the shelf at Binny's to $60. You know, they can be in anything in between. So Brunello that comes from the same region, the whole region is Tuscany, but the sub region is Montalcino. So take a look at this label. See how it says Brunello di Montalcino? One of the ways that Italians label their wines is grape from place. So Brunello is the grape. And Brunello is a certain clone of the variety Sandrovese, which is a major red grape in Tuscany. Actually, it's the most ubiquitously planted red grape in the entire country of Italy, but it is the number one grape of Tuscany. So Brunello di from Montalcino. Montalcino is a small medieval tower town, very picturesque, beautiful on the top of these rolling hills. That's just south of the city of Siena. Does all Brunello have to come from Montalcino? Absolutely. 100% of all the Brunello grapes or Sandrovese grapes must be sourced from the Montalcino region. The climate is a warm Mediterranean. Pat, if I asked you what a Mediterranean climate is, what are some things you might say to kind of describe that? Generally hot and dry. Absolutely. Hot and dry. So Sandrovese is a grape, is pretty drought resistant, and does thrive in the very warm, dry, and long summers that a warm Mediterranean climate is going to offer it. It's good. Generally not a climate associated with a overweight white guys like me. We don't do well in places like that. Well, you never know until you try, I suppose. I mean, go to Tuscany in July. Well, one thing that will save you is I do know that you are kind of a night owl. And they have what is called a high diurnal shift because they actually are up high, relatively high in altitude, you know, talking maybe a thousand feet or so. And so the nights are very cool. So kind of to harken back to our Napa Valley example, the days are 100 degrees, but at night we cool down to about 60. So sleeping up in Tuscany in the summer is fantastic. The windows are open. It's weird because a lot of Italians don't have screens. So I kind of struggled with that because I, mosquitoes, I just have like one of those, the Tinder profile for me for mosquitoes is just swipe, right? I mean, they love, they love this so much, you know. Tuscany is a coastal region, but Montalcino especially is pretty far inland, right? Yes, yes. So you get both Mediterranean influences. You have a bit of a corridor in the southern part of Tuscany that allows those Mediterranean breezes to flow north and east, but then they also have the benefit of alpine. So it is warmer though than in Chianti. Chianti is even further north and further east and Chianti is wetter and cooler. So Brunello di Montalcino, the grapes are riper. So they're naturally higher in alcohol. They tend to be or can be seen, especially in the past decades ago. It was a bit more flavorful, fuller bodied, more concentrated flavor, more phenolics in the skins, things like that. That playing ground is being leveled nowadays. But back in the day, that was one of the reasons that it was created as such a high quality region. And Brunello di Montalcino was one of these very sought after wines of connoisseurs in the 70s and 80s because of the climate. What's the typical alcohol range for a Brunello? Well, it must be by law a minimum 12.5% ABV at harvest. So the grapes must be able to reach that potential alcohol. Basically, no problem when they're fermented. We have two examples we're going to taste today. The first from 2012, which was a bit of a warmer vintage, is 14%. And the 2013 vintage that I'm teaching to be called cool and classic is 14.5%. So pretty standard. Do you have to finesse a wine like this after you open? Is this a wine where you would recommend it sits and breathes for an hour or two? Or is there something you can pop a cork and it's going to be pretty enjoyable? Depends on the age and the producer. Generally, you want to decant a young Brunello just because you want to give it its best shot. I'm not an over-decanter, but an hour or two to get some air in it. It's going to really perform better, especially if you have a large group. Let's say I've got seven people over for dinner and everyone gets a glass, right? Then I'm going to decant that for like an hour or two. So young Brunello, yes. But it's a wine that's meant to age. One of a few wines in classic vintages that you should lay down for seven, ten, or 12 years. You can lay these down for 30 or 40 years. I've had some very old expressions of these, of Brunelli, and they're fantastic. So they can go. They do have legs to... Is that the proper plural Brunelli? Brunelli. We're doing this again? Amaro Amaro. You know this. We've done this. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We've done this. Yeah, yeah. But like a lot of French wines, you want to age because they're so tannic and rustic up front that a lot of that has to die down. These are, because they're Sangiovese especially, easy to drink early, but the fruit gets out of the way and you get all that other complexity with age. Correct. So you get those primary aromas of the cherry and the strawberry, the red fruit, they will dissipate. They'll become more dried fruit. They'll become more savory, kind of more forest floor, that kind of a thing, cedar. Sangiovese as a grape is generally seen as a moderately tannic grape. So I also like young Sangiovese. So did you bring one that's young or is this too old ones? These are considered young because Brunello di Montalcino has the oldest mandatory minimum aging laws for DOCG in Italy. The regular Brunello must be aged four years and the Reserva five. Now is this aged in oak or aged in bottle? Does it matter? So now this is kind of where we get into the traditional versus modern. You know, there's that traditional producer versus modern. I think that exists in most things like in Isla. Can you find a traditional Isla versus a modern Isla? Oh, yeah. You know, so and what makes that definition? Equipment, whether they're, you know, using a cast iron mash ton and open fermentation, things like oak, you know, they call it Oregon pine fermentation, things like that versus like a big stainless modern distillery. Okay. So for us, it's generally going to be the aging vessel. That's just the number one place. It's not the only place in this definition of modern versus traditional, but it tends to be the old school guys used old Slavonian larger oak casks that didn't impart really too much oak flavor onto the wine. The new guys are using small French barriques that are new. So you get more of that vanilla kind of sweet toast aroma to the wine. So there's that camp, that sort of traditional versus modern. So there's a two year minimum in oak for the regular Brunello, then four months minimum in bottle for the Reserva, six months minimum in bottle. So how that looks, if you guys want to buy the release, the sale on the market will be January 1st, the fifth year after the grapes were harvested for the regular Brunello, and January 1st, the sixth year after harvest for the Reserva. That's when they come into the market. That's pretty old wine. How does that compare to Rioja? So that depends. If you're going to buy a Crianza, that's two years. If you're going to buy a Reserva, that's three years, and Gran Reserva is five. So the Sangiovese grape, do we know that by any other names in other winemaking regions in the world, or is that kind of, if you're planting Sangiovese, you're calling it Sangiovese? It's got many synonyms. In another region called Montepulciano, you might know Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, very close to Montalcino, they call it Prugnolo, Prugnolo Gentile. That's the name of the clone there, so it's the same variety. So it's got many clones and many different names. So not only could you learn maybe 300 indigenous Italian grape varieties that are in commercial production, you can also learn their 5,000 synonyms, which is really annoying sometimes. Is Sangiovese planted anywhere in the New World currently? Yes, there are inklings of it. It's planted in Portugal, it's planted in Spain, and of course, Argentina and Cali. I mean, every grape that you've ever heard of is in California. Yeah. And around the Mediterranean Sea, it likes the Mediterranean climate, but nowhere cool or anything like that. What's cool about Brunello is the history, though. So they had an- Wait, can we taste one? Oh, yeah. Okay. Let's start with the 2012. Donatello, ooh. Really? I can't read it because it's on this funky design, so it's hard to see. Kristen just reacted the way that any human being who's trying to read in Italian blindly won't react. It's like Cinelli Colombini. Donatello, Cinelli Colombini, that's what it is. Donatello, Cinelli Colombini, this smells so good. I know. Take a look at the color. That's that brick red color comes from an extended oxidative aging in barrel, and as that wine takes in the oxygen, it will go maybe for more of a ruby color and gain those brick red hues. This aging that they do, they build the maturity right into the wine. Exactly. Very similarly in how you brought up Rioja. We like to talk about Rioja, how they do all the aging for you in the winery, so just pop the cork and enjoy. You don't have to sit on it much. And that's kind of the same thing here. I gotta say, for the top, top, top producers though, Biondi Santi and so on, I mean, these wines, you gotta give them a little bit more time. They're made with a bit more oomph and a bit more structure. Go ahead and give it a taste for me. It's just like this complexity, just right out of the gate on this. So when you say complexity, what do you, how would you define that for this wine? It's herbal. It's like dry tea leaves and dry herb leaves. It's got a, I'm picking up on more of a fruit leather thing going on, like this dried, dark fruit, along with that kind of herbal, wood herbal, forest floor, like you were saying. For me, it's like black tea, kind of. I get a little bit of that. But sour cherry, clay, clay pot, a little bit of iron. It's like somebody's kind of making a sauce and an iron, cast iron skillet, kind of. I know it sounds weird, but that's what that sort of smells like to me. Bracing acidity. The cherry is like underwrapped cherry, really tart. Sour. But that acid, you can feel the tannins. The tannins are relatively soft, right? This is the 2012, right? The Cinelli Colombini. Say it again, Greg, because you say it better. Donatello Cinelli Colombini. Oh. It's like an Italian sports car of a wine. It's racing and bound up and energetic. Yeah. It looks like sour cherry color too. It's interesting. I don't know that I've ever had a Brunello before. It's one of my favorites. I say that a lot, but it is actually one of my favorites. It's lighter body than I was expecting. I was expecting, I don't know. I don't know what I was expecting. I don't drink enough wine to lay down serious expectations here. Would you say? If I was working in the wine department like I used to, and I had somebody who wanted to grow past domestic Pinot Noir, Brunello di Montalcino would be a good recommendation? I think so. It's a little bit less fruity. They have to be told about the rusticity, but that will go away like you said earlier in the cast pat with a little bit of decanting, letting the air inside. I think that they'd be able to make that jump easily. That was the 2012. 59.99. Il Poggione, Il Poggione. So this is one of the oldest producers in Brunello, and one of the largest in terms of production. I don't know for sure, but I read something crazy, like well into the 100,000 cases, they do quite a bit. Not of just Brunello, but they do a Rosso di Montalcino that is a fantastic value, especially in lesser vintages. They'll declassify some of their Reserva fruit, and they put it in their Rosso, and it's just like the 14s. I just scooped a case, you know? But they also do a Rosse and quite a few other things, but their production is very, very high, and they're one of the most recognized and well-known producers in the area. This Cinelli Colombini is not so much. They're kind of a bit more on the high end, a little bit smaller artisan production, but Poggione, for the amount of juice that they produce in their winery, they do a consistent job year after year. It's so fresh. That's the 13. For me, it was kind of some people I tasted these with when I went to the 2013 Brunello tasting some months ago. We're kind of like, I don't smell the fruit. It's not the opulence that I'm after. And I just was, you know, didn't really say much. But I'm thinking to myself, what are you talking about? You know what I mean? It's cool. It's classic. They're going to age beautifully. They're very well balanced. They're not so screaming high acidity. And this is a very good example. And that's a part in part to the producer. These guys do make more of an approachable style up front, whereas the Colombini is going to be more of more traditional. You can tell by the acid and the way that the chalkiness of the tannins. The nose is like riper cherries. And then I get like a like a lavender floral quality, maybe vanilla. I love this with some charcuterie, some hard cheese like Parmesan. Oh, man, make a Sammy, want another Sammy? I always want another Sammy. Yep, it's still acidic and tannic all the way across the finish. But not too much, very well balanced. And the other thing that's balanced, I think, is the pronounced fruit flavor and the acid. When the acid is too high and you don't have enough flavor in the wine, the acid can just kill it. And that's all you get. But I find that it's really flavorful as well. Really long finish. It's a really good buy. Good value. Mineral built into the finish, too. And it's kind of coppery, but it's not bloody coppery. Where does mineral come from, Greg? You mean in the grape? Or what do you mean? In the wine, like when you smell and taste it. Where does mineral come from? I'm about to get schooled, but. Yep. Where do you think? Well, it would have to come from the fruit itself. Beautiful. Not from the yeast and not from the wood. No, it comes from the acid. Yeah. So it's generally high, low pH or high acid wines in relatively cool climate regions will give you this mineral quality, mineral texture and mineral smell. A lot of people think that it comes directly from the soil, but that can't be proven. Because they haven't found particles of soil. Exactly. You have to, right? If they say, okay, well, this particular granite gives this minerality, well, then you have to find the granite molecules in the wine and there is no direct relationship. So people say, oh, it soaks it up from the ground. We do know, if you go back to our Burgundian example, those monks in the medieval times were noticing differences in the parcel based on what they smelled and what they tasted. And we still can smell and taste those differences. We just really can't explain why. But now it's kind of become known that minerality really comes more from the acidic structure, low pH wines, give you that mineral. Yeah, the soil can affect the way, I mean, obviously affect the way that the plants develop and the fruit develops, but it's just not, you're saying it's not the particles of the soil itself. Correct. Good job you pass. So, it's 300,000 acres is the size of Bordeaux, and it's 5,000 acres is the size of Brunello, the Montalcino, or the Montalcino region, rather. So, you had made a glancing reference earlier to one of my guilty pleasures, because it's a little bit cheaper and a little bit younger and more approachable, and that is Rosso di Montalcino. So, is that just declass Brunello, what is that? It comes from the same area around the Montalcino region, but they'll have different vineyards that are dedicated to that production, but technically they can use any San Giovese that comes from any of the vineyards that surround the Montalcino So, even if it's a different colonial variety? It's got to be Brunello. So, some producers will, let's say they replanted a vineyard, will use their younger vines, or they will just use an area that the grapes don't get, has opulently ripe or whatever it is. So, they will have some dedicated vineyards for their Rosso production, but also can use their regular vineyards for their Brunello production as well. So, yeah, it's almost like the second label. That's exactly what it is. And then you can also declassify your Brunello grapes if you're not up to snuff and you don't want to make a top-end wine, like this is considered year after year, then you can make more Rosso di Montalcino. And it also keeps the lights on. So, you want to get some of that out on the market. It's cheaper for the consumer. It's cheaper to make less aging requirements and it's like a year after the harvest or something. I gotta say, as a wine consultant, it's not tough to make a recommendation for a Brunello di Montalcino because for like 60 to 80 dollars, you're getting a world-class wine that competes with wines in terms of complexity at twice or three times the price from around the world. But, if you've got a customer who wants to only spend 20 or 30 bucks. 15, 18. Yeah. Il Poggione in the good vintages was 18.99 this last round. That's such a knockout value. And you're giving me a cheaper and younger. It's a good gateway into the more expensive stuff. So, while your Brunello is kind of aging a little bit downstairs under your guest bed or whatever, you can drink the Rosso di Montalcino with impunity. It's a Tuesday night and you're having a pizza. So, just real quick, some stats there. 258 Brunello producers, 208 of them bottle their own wines in their own facilities. They make about 9 million bottles annually. And about 70% of the total Brunello production is exported. Of that 70% of total production that's exported, 30% of that comes to the United States. Yeah, I mean, this is small, interesting, complex wine that kind of gets looked over, I think, sometimes. Well, yeah, it hits all those key words that people are into, small production, art is in, top of the line, you know, spared no expense kind of wine making. A lot of them are organic and biodynamic. Thanks to the climate, it's a little bit easier for them to do that where they can, and sustainable. I love that so much of the aging is built in on them too. That's pretty crazy. That for a producer to sit on something that long and in wood and bottle, and then it's still only gonna be like 50 bucks. That's kind of what I say about champagne all the time. It's like all that work that that person put in to making that thing and they're only gonna sell it to you for 50 bucks, like that's a steal, you know. Yeah, I mean we have like craft bourbons that are six months old that are a hundred dollars. No, I hear you. So if you're looking for a price for quality ratio, you know, a lot of people, including myself, want to live around 20 bucks, but every now and then, you know, that Saturday night or a special occasion or just, you know, the more, the better I do and the more successful I am, the more Brunello I'm going to drink. You know, like, it's just awesome. I'm excited. Well, folks, that brings us to the Q&A portion of the Barrel to Bottle Podcast. As always, send us your questions at Binny's Bev on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or email us, comments at binnys.com, for your chance at a $20 Binny's gift card, good at any Binny's location. Our question this week comes from Instagram at Andrew Mick, Andrew Mick, 1234. Apparently, there were 1,233 Andrew Mick's before this one. Anyway, it's a great question. The question is, what makes a wine good for aging? Pat, what do you think? Acidity and tannin. Perfect. So the two things that make a wine suitable for long-term aging, or even a few years, if you will, are tannin and acid. So for white wines and absence of tannin, oftentimes you just could look for good, strong acidity. So those are the two things. Tannin is an antioxidant, so helps protect the wine from oxidation to help it age. As you age a wine, let's say a wine that needs to be aged, like Barolo we mentioned at the top of the cast, or some Bordeaux or Cabernets, whatever. When they need to age, it means that the acid and tannin are very high when that baby was bottled, and that's why it's got to be put away. So the aging process in the terms of tannin goes through a process called polymerization. So the tannin and the color molecules, they link up and they form sediment and they precipitate out of the liquid. So that's the sludge at the bottom of the bottle when you get that very unlucky glass at the end. That's all color and tannin that has bled itself out because it clumped up in the liquid. And so if that's tannin in the sediment, that's not tannin in the wine, and that softens the structure over time. So when you say wine needs to age, it's to promote that polymerization to make the wine softer and more palatable. And is that why you wanted to decant aged wines when you're serving them? Yes, because the air will do the same thing. It will soften the structure and actually will open up the wine. We say opening up the wine via oxidation and decanter that allows the aroma esters to kind of be more pronounced and you smell more of the fruit of the wine. Plus, you can pour from an aged bottle into a decanter all except for the last quarter inch or so and not dump some of the sediment into the glass. Yeah, so if you are very, very good and diligent in aging your wine, you're doing it in a dark place, about 55 degrees without vibration, without light, right? You bring that bottle out of your cellar and you place it on your counter for a few hours if you can, just to make sure all the sediment will go to the bottom, flow to the bottom of the bottle. And then as you decant very carefully, a lot of people will do this for older wines over a candle, so they can see when the sediment becomes apparent and visible in the liquid. Once you start to see it approaching the neck of the bottle, you stop and then you just will have, you're right, about maybe half an inch or an inch left in the bottle that you don't get to drink, but you don't really want to. Until like way later in the night and you're like, all right, I'm going for it. Yeah, yeah, so you're just like, who drank all my Tito's? It's probably more than Andrew Mick, one, two, three, four was looking for. That's fine. That's what you got, buddy. Thank you, Andrew Mick, one, two, three, four, on Instagram for the question. $20 Binny's gift card coming your way. Thanks, you guys. Thanks for listening. I just wanted to get something out on Brunello for our wine geeks. So thanks for kind of hanging out for the geeky cast. Thanks for the free Brunello. Yeah. Thanks, everybody, for listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, the Binny's Podcast. Until next time, I'm Greg. I'm Pat. I'm Kristen. Keep tasting. You have a sandwich every day, I think. I do love a good sandwich. What did you bring for lunch? A salad. I have quinoa. Oh. Hipsters.