Size & Type
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$183
The 2022 Rosso di Montalcino is wonderfully perfumed, casting a blend of roses, violets and crushed blackberries. A stone dust hint adds lovely complexity. This is elegant in style and remarkably pure, showing depths of cherry-berry fruit guided by a wave of vibrant acidity. The 2022 leaves a salty, mineral flourish while tapering off long and gently tannic. Crisp in feel, with resonating blue and purple inner florals. This is already quite likable, yet it also has the balance to excel in the cellar over the medium term. Drink 2025-2030
Eric Guido, Vinous 92+ Points
ON THE 2016: A bold Rosso, more than a baby Brunello. Much more delicious than many a Brunello on the market. There is something quite serious happening here. Dark fruited with incredible depth and length. Although the intensity in its youth is palpable, the harmony and balance here signal that as it shifts to the next phase of development it will give much, much more.
It is already incredibly complex, and, layered, dark mulberry and cherry, a little leather and earth play with truffles and undergrowth, yet another sniff reveals a perfume and musk. So much to enjoy here. For all the richness it has grace, and sophistication. A dusting of tannin to counter that richness is supported by a fine line of acid.
I’m certain if I sat with it over a couple of days it would be ever-changing and provide incredible intrigue.
Researching the wine, I came across Galloni’s notes on the 2010 Brunello. “In all of my years tasting the wines of Montalcino, I have only come across two wines with this level of textural unctuosity and sweetness; Gianfranco Soldera’s 1983 Brunello and 1990 Riserva.”
There is not a more emphatic statement that could be made about the capability of a Tuscan estate than that!
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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.
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.
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.
Fioretti is very much inspired by what he calls a “tectonic shift” in winemaking in Italy (and elsewhere) over the last 30 years, with a move towards precision viticulture and a more hygienic approach to winemaking. Fioretti sees this as a shift from winemaking as an “art form” to winemaking as “craftmanship”.
Now, almost a decade later, he’s starting to be able to realise his vision for the estate – as we discovered on a visit earlier this year, with problems that “aren’t easy to solve”. The challenge, he explains, has been evolving from an “artisan” to an “atelier”. Under Molinari, the property developed a legendary reputation, but the operation was rudimentary – a traditional, family business, doing things the way they had always been done. Fioretti wants to bring the estate into the modern era, elevating the terroir with technical precision to craft wines that continue the Cerbaiona legacy. It is, he says, “a transition I wasn’t expecting to make”, but one that he feels is essential to safeguard Cerbaiona’s future.
The distinction between artisan and atelier is a nuanced one – but one that comes down to an emphasis on craft rather than art, with a commitment to consistency, for which precision and hygiene in the winery are key, as well as a high level of technical knowledge. He confesses that he had envisaged having a more hands-off approach in the winery, having imported a lot of natural wines in his previous career, but has rapidly realised that top-level winemaking is full of “necessary compromises” (diving into issues like the fault quercetin). As a craft, winemaking can’t just be subject to the “whims of the producer”, as he suggests is the artisanal way. “I prefer to work more meticulously,” he explains.
It important to and context to all of the seemingly definitive statements made by growers and makers. Growing vines and making wines is just one big experiment with a serious of ever changing variables and endless choices to consider. There is more knowledge and options in each field than every before.
When I read Fioretti’s approach, his desire to craft a delicious beverage is clear, to reach Rome! His choices of which direction to take to get to that end destination take courage when each decision, I prefer, experiment is often both costly and the results could take decades to reveal themselves.
The number of times I’ve seen makers diverge and converge over a period of decades is countless. Pick earlier, pick later, change to stainless fermenters, change to wooden fermenters, shorten the maturation period, lengthen the maturation period. Each can be justified with science. Multiple PhD’s could be written on each of these!
Fiorreti’s approach seeks to optimise all aspects of production, and raise the baseline consistency and quality to increasing heights.
At the end of the day you have to be in the arena and have clear intent.
Two things are clear, Fioretti is working with a site that is capable of growing exceptional fruit, and he is placing himself in the best possible position to be fully informed and get as close to Rome as he can as soon as possible. The reality is no-one reaches Rome in the wine game. It’s the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!
Paul Kaan, WINE DECODED
At the end of 2015, the new ownership converted Cerbaiona to organic farming.
The vineyards have all been replanted and a steep-sloped olive grove replaced with vines, all with selected rootstocks and clones sourced from France’s Guillaume nursery, to give them the best possible raw material. Once seen as too labour-intensive to farm, he’s convinced the ex-olive grove might just be the best site on the property.
The rustic old stables and granary that acted as the cellar and winery have been carefully renovated, with water and drainage installed throughout, and the equipment all updated. Importantly, Fioretti has added a full in-house laboratory – something that is exceedingly rare for a property of this size, let alone Italy where the high-tech approach is far from the norm.
The fruit is now all chilled after harvest, de-stemmed and cold-soaked, using inert gas to protect the must. While he used upright wooden tanks for fermentation for his first five vintages, Fioretti switched to stainless steel to allow for better hygiene and temperature control (preferring a maximum 26̊C), as well as allowing him to programme them for automated punch-downs and pump-overs. He’s started co-inoculating for primary and malolactic fermentation, meaning the wines go into barrel very clean – and can be sulphured right away.These are tweaks, minor modernisations, but one of the most significant changes Foretti is making is the time the wine spends in wood. While Molinari favoured four-plus years in 500-litre tonneaux, Fioretti has gradually started bottling the wine earlier and uses a combination of 350-litre barrels and 15-hectolitre casks. “Even two years [the appellation minimum] in wood is too long,” he says – before quickly acknowledging that such a view is far from accepted, and he cannot legally reduce it any further. The various consorzios may not like it, but it’s a view that is increasingly common among younger producers in Italy, who are frustrated by minimum oak-ageing requirements and their contrast with the wines today’s consumers want to drink. As Fioretti says, however, “The notion of wood is very delicate.” And while he’d rather be able to age his wine in other vessels during their first two years of life, he acknowledges that élevage in oak has a beneficial impact on the chemistry of wine – aiding stability.
Part of his plan to reflect that potential is bottling earlier, allowing the fruit to shine through and give the wine better balance – something he feels is key for ageing potential. He’s also keen to make sure the wine is moderate in alcohol with maximum 14 or 14.2%, even in the warmest years. And most importantly, he says, good wine has to be delicious. Having tasted the 2019 and 2021 with Fioretti – the results so far really are. There’s a vibrancy and purity that makes them irresistible, while not sacrificing the structure that will allow these wines to go the distance.
Alongside Cerbaiona, Fioretti has also created the M.L. Fioretti label, one he describes as “part garagiste, part petit château”. He was keen to explore indigenous grapes, which “are part of the family – but not all thoroughbreds”, as well as plots of Bordeaux varietals (grapes with undeniable pedigree) – provided they’re planted in the right place. The Casaglia Colorino is bright and spicy, while the San Vito (sadly the last vintage of which is 2021) is a beautifully lush and vibrant Merlot. These wines that allow Fioretti to experiment more – outside the constrictions of the Brunello di Montalcino appellation.
The Cerbaiona winery is located about a kilometer from Cerbaiona, near the cellar of Casanova di Neri.
The 2022 Rosso di Montalcino is wonderfully perfumed, casting a blend of roses, violets and crushed blackberries. A stone dust hint adds lovely complexity. This is elegant in style and remarkably pure, showing depths of cherry-berry fruit guided by a wave of vibrant acidity. The 2022 leaves a salty, mineral flourish while tapering off long and gently tannic. Crisp in feel, with resonating blue and purple inner florals. This is already quite likable, yet it also has the balance to excel in the cellar over the medium term. Drink 2025-2030
Where in the world does the magic happen?
Cerbaiona, Montalcino, Province of Siena, Italy
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