Cerbaiona Brunello di Montalcino 2018

Why is this Wine so Yummy?

After receiving multiple perfect scores for there 2010 Cerbaiona requested journalists no longer score their wines! Cappellano does the same. You can read why here.

About Cerbaiona

Cerbaiona is a manor house dating from the 1600s, with a small private chapel and a renaissance garden supported by a high embankment. From this location at 400 meters above sea level, just northeast of the town of Montalcino, the view looks towards Pienza, and tucked off to the south, hovers Monte Amiata. The towering Maremma cypress and intimate villa of Cerbaiona are a landmark travelers see as they head to Montalcino from Torrenieri.

In 1977 a new owner, Diego Molinari, arrived from Rome, and neighboring growers were hired to replant and expand the vineyard. In 1981, Cerbaiona began to produce for commerce, and four years later labeled the wine from that vintage as Brunello di Montalcino.

Nearly instantly, critics noted what the locals had known long before: The small hillside of Cerbaiona, with its galestro (limestone shale) soils infused with sand, is a unique patch of land in Montalcino. Almost by doing nothing, you can make an exceptional wine at Cerbaiona. Its vineyard location is that special and unique.

In the several decades that followed, Cerbaiona took on the status of a cult Brunello, its small production difficult to find and the characteristics of this wine immediately identifiable with this particular vineyard site.

Indeed, Cerbaiona is distinctly different than other Brunello and has the inimitable, individual signs of a cru vineyard; a wine for which being from Cerbaiona is its very essence.

In the fall of 2015, Diego Molinari, age 84, sold Cerbaiona to a group of investors led by Gary  Rieschel, an American wine collector, and Matthew   Fioretti, the estate’s new manager who runs all aspects of Cerbaiona. Maurizio Bovini, with his decades of experience in vineyard and cellar management, joined Cerbaiona in April 2016. This group has brought together its passion for farming and wine in order to guide and move forward Cerbaiona.  ​

Today, Cerbaiona produces 10,000 – 15,000 bottles of Brunello di Montalcino per  year. Depending on the vintage, 3,000 – 5,000 bottles of Rosso di Montalcino are also produced. To ensure quality and selection, sometimes small lots of Sangiovese IGT are also bottled.

In the Vineyard

Current vineyard planting at Cerbaiona consists of three main blocks planted in 1978, 1986 and 2000, with less than 3,600 plants per hectare.

Many vines are now missing and a progressive replanting program has been initiated to replant to higher density, with site specific clones selected from Guillaume nursery, a project that began with Paolo de Marchi nearly three decades ago, engaging in profound studies and clonal research on Sangiovese in Tuscany.

At the end of 2015, the new ownership converted Cerbaiona to organic farming.

​In 2017, an additional hectare and a half of Sangiovese is being planted on steepest part of the estate, directly below the villa of Cerbaiona – perhaps the most magnificent spot on this cru, but long planted to olives as a more expedient, lower labor use for this steep slope.

In the Winery

Hands on, artisan winemaking starts with the separation of vineyard blocks and specific rows. Selection tables and a high tech, paddle destemmer ensure the best  berries are selected and kept in pristine condition. They are transferred, without any crushing, into open top, wood tanks, varying in size from 15HL, 25HL, and 30HL.

Fermentation is allowed to occur naturally with indigenous yeasts. For the first week of fermentation, to avoid over extraction and ensure more elegant wines, pump-overs are limited to an absolute minimum, while the caps are punched down manually. Press wine is kept separate from free run and the new wines undergo malolactic in the same, upright wood tanks used for fermentation. The wines  are then left on the fine lees, occasionally stirred, until spring.

The wines are then transferred to Slavonian oaks casks – like the fermentation tanks, hand crafted by master coopers Klaus and Jacob Pauscha – ranging in size from 10HL, 17HL and 20HL. Minimal racking is used during the 30 months in cask.

This wine underwent a maceration period of 28 days. Initially, this wine was meant to be released as a second, lower tier Brunello, but after a year and a half in cask, it was decided to produce it as an interesting, higher level Rosso di Montalcino.

The 2018 Vintage in Cerbaiona

Difficulties travel in pairs. After a 2017 that exposed Montalcino to extreme heat and a lack of rain (and the benefit of virtually no vineyard disease), 2018 moved us in the opposite direction, if not the extreme: a cool and wet spring with extremely high exposure to vineyard disease, a mild and promising summer, and then unfortunate rains while we waited for a much needed final few weeks of growing before harvest.

The lowest production in the number of bottles produced (under 6,000) in over a decade at Cerbaiona, and no 2018 Rosso di Montalcino at all, explains that 2018 was a vintage to be determined by choice and sacrifice.

Like 2017, the 2018 is Brunello that is not intended for long cellaring. But it is worthy of positive consideration and much dignity. Unlike the 2017, the 2018 has a more saturated colour, brighter and fuller, more expressive fruit – pure and delineating of a “cooler” vintage. As I wrote last year in presenting the 2017, while I would have wished different climatic conditions, in viticulture, you take what nature throws at you and wishes are not part the equation. Satisfaction comes in taking count when the wine is complete. ​With the 2018 Cerbaiona Brunello, I can reveal a certain satisfaction that difficult conditions were managed such that we have a wine of fine Brunello expression – a certain brightness and immediate quality – while still profound – that is not so often found in the appellation. This is a vintage not to be missed: Because it is truly unique; and not because it is one of the all time greats. In itself, this fact conveys something very important about the appreciation and enjoyment of Brunello.

Winemaking was gentle and grapes skins were comprised. We kept fermentation at low temperatures and fortunately finished fermentations in a relatively short time, allowing us to take the wine off the skins early. We never use press wine for either

Brunello or Rosso di Montalcino – press wine goes into the VDT – but in 2018, we were so focused on keeping the free run wine as pure as possibile, we did not press at all. We wanted the skins gone and away as soon as possibile.

We bottled the 2018 Cerbaiona Brunello on May 1, 2021, as it is the “new” Cerbaiona’s winemaking view to bottle early and preserve the wines brightness and longevity. Waiting too long to bottle only dulls both prospects. After the high and taught Sangiovese notes of the 2017 Brunello, I was thrilled to taste the 2018 from bottle – open but deeper fruit, almost velvety and ready to drink. I wondered, however, who it would be two years hence.

Today, as I write over two years later, I am once again surprised that the 2018 continues on its expressive path. As I said with the release of the 2017 and mentioned above, the 2018 is again, not a wine to cellar for the long term. (No worries, at this time, Cerbaiona has bottled both its 2019 and 2020 Brunello and you will have plenty for a longer time in the cellar on those.) My suggestion is to enjoy this wine’s refinement now and over the next four years, until 2027 or so. This is another vintage for the connoisseur, that true lover of wine and the vine. So be it if the “collector” misses out.

​Analytic Data

Alcohol: 14.3%
Residual Sugar: 0.12 g/l
Total Dry Extract: 28.5 g/l
pH: 3.34
Total Acidity: 5.6 g/l
Volatile Acidity: 0.53 g/l
Free SO2: 20 ppm
Total SO2: 56 ppm
Bottled: May 1, 2020
Production:  5,928 – 750ML bottles & 300 1.5L Magnums
Closure: Mureddu Grand Cru IGEA, 26 x 54, vintage marked ‘2018’ on both heads; gommalacca-soft wax seal.

Matthew Fioretti – Cerbaiona, Montalcino

Where in the World is Cerbaiona?

The Cerbaiona winery is located about a kilometer from Cerbaiona, near the cellar of Casanova di Neri.