Ciacci Piccolomini d'Aragona - Brunello di Montalcino DOCG - 2018

Highly prized Brunello from Piccolomini from the southern part of the Brunello DOCG, Castelnuovo dell'Abate.

Ruby red wine with garnet-like glints. In the nose ripe cherries, plums, tobacco, hints of coffee, dried violets, liquorice, humus and bay leaves. In the mouth the wine is full, powerful, beautifully structured, balanced, delicious dark ripe fruit, fresh hints. The finish is long with nicely rounded tannins and hints of liquorice.

The Brunello vineyards of Piccolomini, large 8ha, are located in the southern part of the Brunello DOCG. The soil type is mainly marl. The vineyards are located at an altitude of 240 to 360 meters.

The grapes are picked by hand in September and carefully selected for quality, then softly pressed. Fermentation takes place in large steel vats, under controlled temperatures. The must is gently pumped around several times a day. The wine is further matured in Slavonian oak barrels of 20 to 75 hl for a period of 24 months. The wine is then bottled. The wine refines in the bottle for a period of 8 months.

A nice wine/food combination of this Brunello is roasted or stewed game and mature cheeses.

About Ciacci Piccolomini d'Aragona:
The winery was founded in 1985 and is located in the southern part of the Brunello di Montalcino DOCG, in Castelnuovo dell'Abate. In total, the company has 55 hectares of vineyards. The owners of the company are Paolo and Lucia Bianchini.

95/100 James Suckling

Roasted herbs, walnuts, olives, dried cherries and balsamic on the nose with a touch of leather and sage. It's full-bodied with firm, finely-knit tannins. Creamy and so well integrated with depth and class. Try after 2024

94/100 Robert Parker

The 2018 Brunello di Montalcino turns out beautiful results if you choose to drink the wine now, or if you opt to age it a little longer. It offers immediate intensity and complexity with a prelude of red and purple berry fruits that follow to tarry spice, campfire ash, licorice and rusty nail. Those savoy tones are well measured against the wine's elegant, mid-weight finish. And the tannins are integrated seamlessly. The winemaking team has worked well in a challenging vintage.