Brunello di Montalcino 2014

Grape varieties: Sangiovese Grosso

The winery own and seven vineyard terraces are located very importantly on the steep north eastern hillside under  

Florio and family is one of the most sensitive Brunello producers alive today. Their seven vineyards terraces are located very importantly on the north eastern steep hillside under “La Fortezza di Montalcino”, in an area which is called Canalicchio di Sopra, and due to this the style of wine is very Burgundian even Cote de Nuits. On top of that, the composition of the soil here has a lot of calcareous limestone, fossil, rich content and sandy mix, which gives a strong iodine and salty expression to the wines.

The other reason for the terroir expression of Il Paradiso di Manfredi, is of course Florio himself, who is the one of the most sensitive and in touch with the whole wine vinification process producers that I know, and the delicateness of every operation is so much that he lets the wine express itself tremendously.

This is the reason why again in the circumstance of the vintages there is of course difference in the vintage expression, but again the experience of Florio creates a much more terroir driven wine, rather than a vintage driven wine. For example the 2011, that from the “Consorzio di Brunello di Montalcino”, one of the most indignant and embarrassing points when they declassified Florio’s Brunello, and he came out instead with the “Rosso Toscana”, at a higher price then the fantastic 2010, it was due to the incompetence of the tasting forum, that is meant to judge whether the wines of Brunello have the level to bare the name Brunello, and the 2011 due to the very hot vintage, took longer to calm down and come into his own, and today is an amazing Brunello.

Back to the vintages that we are currently offering, as long as they last, the 2013 is a classic splendid vintage, in general, and in Florio capacity has made a magnificent wine.

2014, which by many people, including journalists and consumers, has sometimes been looked down upon as a less fortunate more rainy cool vintage, is in fact the vintage example that we always like to show in order for you as a consumer to understand who are the real talents in an appellation. So in this case when you taste the 2014 from Florio, you will be able to much easier discern the greatness of this estate compare to neighbors, whereas in 2013, we tend to say that with a great vintage the average Joe can make an ok good wine: whereas in a less than spectacular vintage, this is where we really show the greatness of our producers.

So compliments to Florio on the 2014.