Brunello di Montalcino

At first there was the Brunello di Montalcino. I found in the best restaurants the Brunello di Montalcino Mastrojanni and consumed often. In 1983 I came to Montalcino for the first time and I bought the Brunello di Montalcino wine in different place. In 1987 I visited Sandro Chia: he also producer of Brunello di Montalcino. And I met Carlo Vittori made into wine, Brunello di Montalcino by Sandro. So I'm in love with Charles Montalcino and began to look for me on a farm with the rights of Brunello di Montalcino to make me as producer of Brunello di Montalcino. It took ten years because we found Podere Le Ripi, 54 hectares of land with only one recorded in the Brunello di Montalcino. Wolf & Sirens was born in 2003, my first Brunello di Montalcino produced at Podere Le Ripi. And in 2008, confining Podere Le Ripi with Mastrojanni, after a long friendship with Andrea Machetti, former producer of Brunello di Montalcino and responsible Mastrojanni, we purchased with the Illy Group SpA (the holding company of us brothers Illy) the Mastrojanni which is now one of the best known brands of Brunello di Montalcino.

Brunello di Montalcino

Today, the Brunello di Montalcino Back of Donkey Mastrojanni often gets 94 points WAS and Parker and Brunello di Montalcino Wolves & Sirens Podere Le Ripi obtained with 2004 Weinwisser of 19,5 / 20, an exceptional result for an exceptional wine as Brunello di Montalcino. This ten-year adventure in Montalcino and in particular with the Brunello di Montalcino was the most beautiful of my life and continues: we are building a new cellar for Brunello di Montalcino, Podere Le Ripi that would become the cathedral of wine, with lots of pulpit to preach to Brunello di Montalcino and refined in our oak barrels. But we are also pursuing the project of Bonsai wine or the vineyard Brunello di Montalcino densest in the world. With 62,500 plants per hectare this Brunello di Montalcino comes from vines with deep roots that produce more than 2 meters per plant on average, a cluster: a new innovation in the world of fine wine that was born right here at Podere Le Ripi, in the town of Montalcino under the specification of Brunello di Montalcino. Today, the Brunello di Montalcino wine, Podere Le Ripi is a very rare because they produce very little and with the concept Bonsai wine become, I hope, the Brunello di Montalcino's most wanted in the world. Francesco Illy Winemaker in Montalcino Producer of Brunello di Montalcino At Podere Le Ripi, Montalcino
 
 
Harvesting

Harvest is strictly done by hand. We collect the grapes gently in plastic cassettes, always in the early morning in order to bring them cool to the cellar. Sometimes the mist obliges us to wait because too much dew wets the grapes. Then we wait until it evaporates and harvest faster as we do not want the grapes to become warm with the sun.

The tractors bring the grapes to the cellar as fast as possible and there we either work them immediately or we put them in the shadow to keep them fresh.

We try to harvest in two moments: first the more mature and a few days later we pick those grapes that needed more maturation. But, as the crop is always very little, seldom more than 3.000 kg per hectare, the maturation is very often even. If some grapes are a little bit ahead they bring more sugar and riper tannins, if some are a bit late they compensate with a higher acidity and aromas. We pay a lot of attention in order to avoid unripe grapes that bring unripe tannins, what we call “green tannins”, that give a longer lasting astringency and a vegetal aroma as well as some bitterness to the wines.

It is always a struggle against the time and the weather: you must have the courage to wait, and in September and October it’s not rare to see the weather worsen and to be obliged to wait even longer until the rain is reabsorbed by the grapes.

But we know it: if the grapes are not perfectly ripe, we will make less perfect wines. So we know where to find this courage!