All About Brunello: A Tasting of Tuscany's Best with Castello Banfi

Yes, for the millionth time, I am a huge nerd. I've decided to embrace it (mostly because I'm not a creepy nerd, just a dorky one, if you know what I mean). This is why I fell in love with wine. It's constantly changing, it has an amazing history, and you can never taste everything or know everything there is to know. It's nerd utopia.

So when the opportunity arises to attend an event that is less about someone pushing their brand and more about educating on a region, I'm thrilled to go. Especially when that region is in the country that I've had a love affair with since I studied abroad there when I was in college: Italy.

Last week, my fellow nerd and one of my favorite wine people in Atlanta, MO'C, invited me to a three hour seminar on Brunello di Montalcino conducted by Banfi vintners, a family-owned, US company who has been importing Italian wines since 1919, and who makes some pretty great Italian wines (if you don't believe me, know that a huge chunk of their wine sales are from Italy so they don't just make wines for export -- they walk the walk. For more on them, check out their story here.).

The presentation was given primarily by Rudy Buratti (left), the head winemaker for Banfi, who understood but did not speak English, which was just fine by me -- although I only understood about 1/3 of what he was saying from my rusty Italian, it still sounded great! Thankfully the talk was translated and framed by Lars Leicht, the VP and Assistant to the Chairman, whom I honestly thought was going to be a total suit, but who more than proved me wrong with his great humor, down-to-earth character, and passion for Banfi and for wine (it all stands to reason -- he's a fellow New Yorker-- it's hard to be from there and have nothing doing in terms of personality. Ok, I'm biased, I know).

The event was awesome because unlike many of these kinds of things, I learned a ton. I was blown away by the complexity and diversity of Montalcino, the small town to which MC Ice and I would love to retire, a decision we made after visiting on a wine boondoggle a few years ago.

The wine of Montalcino seems so deceptively simple at first. I mean, there's only one grape here: Sangiovese. Easier than the 5 grapes of Bordeaux or the 13 of Chateauneuf-du-Pape...ahhh, but there's so much more to the story.

As Rudy told us, the grape is really different in Montalcino than it is in other parts of Tuscany. There are 600 clones of Sangiovese here, each with just a slightly different flavor. The Brunello clone ('little brown one,' named for its skin color) of Sangiovese has adapted to the different soil types of Montalcino. The region's dry, hot climate also allows vines here to survive, but not thrive. These poor conditions and the area’s diverse soil types create grapes with a high proportion of skin to pulp, that maximize the color, tannin, and flavors in the wine.

Wines from Brunello are a reflection of the land-- you'll never taste wine made from Sangiovese like Brunello di Montalcino -- not from anywhere, including Chianti or in Vino Nobile di Montelpuciano, both esteemed areas for the Sangiovese grape.

It was fascinating to hear Rudy talk about his findings in Montalcino upon his arrival there in the early 1980s, working for Banfi. He and his team took a long term view of working in the area. They first looked at the centuries of winemaking tradition -- the wine was recorded as being unusually delicious in the 14th century and yet it remained a local gem -- even in the 1960s there were only 11 producers and it wasn't until recently that producers have multiplied to 200.

When Banfi invested $100 million in the area in the early 80s, they embarked on a 12 year study of Brunello and Montalcino. They found 29 different soil types and from 600, they selected the three clones they felt best exhibited unique character of the area.

Banfi also studied the all-important x-factor in winemaking: oak. This was essential because when Brunello is first picked, it's very tannic and it requires years of oak aging to help it mellow out. It’s so integral to the wine that as part of its Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (Denomination of Controlled and Guaranteed Origin, DOCG) distinction by the Italian government, Brunello must meet strict aging requirements in oak. For regular Brunello, the wine has to age 4 years -- 2 in oak and 2 in bottle. For riserva (reserve) it's 2 years in oak and 3 in bottle before release.

You've got to have it to be a Brunello but selection of oak is essential because it can drastically change the end product based on things like oak type (American v. French v. Slovenian), age of the barrels (new barrels give stronger flavors than old ones), size of barrels (small imparts more flavor than large barrels), and toast on the barrel (do you char it to give a burnt caramel flavor or lightly toast for a subtle vanilla flavor?).

Banfi's approach to oak is very cool: Rudy actually goes to the forests in France to pick out the tree he wants his barrels made from. Banfi has its own cooperage (barrel-making facility) on-site -- a rare luxury. They take the true European approach to oak. Unlike many American barrel producers who quickly kiln-dry their wood, Banfi’s coopers "season" the wood, cutting it into staves and then storing it outside and in contact with the elements for a year or more to allow natural, subtle flavors to develop.

When the wood is ready, they don't char it to get huge burnt vanilla flavor, which you would taste in the wine, but instead they lightly toast the barrels over a small fire to just get a light toastiness that will give soft vanilla, chocolate, and toast flavors to the grape juice. The proportion of old and new oak and barrel size varies based on the end result desired in the wine, but the preparation of the oak is consistent for Banfi. Very cool story, no?

So after all this dorking out, we tasted 10 wines (my only complaint about the event was that this was WAY too rushed. We didn't have time to ponder each wine before we moved on to the next one).

This was a component tasting. We first tasted the three clones used in most of Banfi’s Brunellos. Then, to see how the land influences flavor, we tasted wines from the four primary vineyards that Rudy uses to make the finished wines. Finally, we tasted the three finished wines. It was an amazing exercise.

First the three clones with dorky names...

• BF 30 was floral with excellent raspberry notes. It was perfumed and astringent/mouth-drying -- the tannins were screaming and the acid was high. Clearly this one adds some backbone to the softer clones, but not something I'd want to drink alone!
• Janus-10 was much more earthy yet with nice plum and tart cherry flavors, and very tannic/astringent. These tannins help preserve the wine so they can age. (I personally thought Janus-10 would have been a fabulous wine without blending!)
• Janus-50 had more body and was richer in fruit and high in alcohol. It was a little astringent and hot, but still with nice raspberry and plum flavors.

The four single vineyard wines we tasted were each unique and clearly bring something different to the party:

• The Casanova Vineyard's wine was acidic but very fruity.
• Sorrena was very mouth-drying, but with pretty red berry and floral flavors.
• Podernuovo was higher in alcohol so was super mouth-coating and had a really long finish. A lot less fruit, this was more textural.
• Poggio d'Orcia Vineyard’s wine had some plum flavors, with lighter tannins, higher alcohol, and high acid.

With those descriptions, you can imagine that there are a ton of permutations the winemakers can put together to make wines that will taste really great. I sort of wished I could have played amateur winemaker and poured some combos into an empty glass to see how they tasted together. I could imagine that putting something like the acidic Casanova Vineyard’s wine with the tannic, mouth-coating wine from the Sorrena Vineyard could have been awesome. But I guess I’ll just need to leave that work to the winemakers…

Finally onto the wines that we can actually buy…made of the clones and from the vineyards above:

2006 Castello Banfi Brunello di Montalcino: Smelled of chocolate powder and oranges, but was soft, floral, and full of tart cherry flavor. It stuck around in my mouth but wasn't a blockbuster of a wine. Would be awesome with a hearty Tuscan bean soup!

2005 Poggio alle Mura: Opaque and brownish, the wine smelled like a pear, violets, and cinnamon and tasted like apples, pears, Chai tea, vanilla, and (weird) kind of like grilled hamburger. It had a really long finish, but it wasn't harsh or mouth-drying.


2004 Poggio all'Oro Riserva: A rare wine, it's only been made in 7 of the last 25 years. The winemakers only produce it when the weather has been exceptional. It was similar to the Poggio alle Mura in flavor, but a little more like tart cherry, perfume/flowers, and mint. It had softer tannins and strong acidity -- would have been great with food.


For the sake of full disclosure, I feel like this post was kind of long and for me, a little arduous to write. I’m sorry if it was boring to you – it’s a lot to cover. This isn’t my most fascinating post, but hopefully you got something out of it (hey, I gotta be honest with you -- especially if you've taken the time to read this far!).

That said, I wanted to get it up on the blog because this kind of tasting is so unique. You get to see the building blocks of each wine and then how they come together. If you ever get a chance to do something like this, I would encourage you to go (usually it's something only offered in wine country, since they have the components on hand!!). It gives you a whole new appreciation for winemaking as an art.

Thanks to Empire and MO'C, and to Rudy and Lars from Banfi. A great event from a winery very devoted to quality and education!

Salute!