Altitude and authenticity
The most striking thing about visiting the home vineyard of Le Potazzine is the sense of altitude; at 507 meters it is higher than most Montalcino vineyards, exposed and open to the winds from every direction. Le Potazzine has three vineyard sites. The home vineyard sits on a mix of iron-rich and clay soils, and supplies perfume and elegance to the wine; a second site, almost equally high, facing Monte Amiata on dry, rocky, volcanic soil supplies structure. The third is sited at a mere 300 metres high on schist soils. Here the grapes ripen earlier, which is especially useful when the vintage is cooler.
Gigliola Giannetti runs Le Potazzine with her two daughters Viola and Sofia, after whom the estate is named; Potazzine are the birds that feature on the label, but it is also dialect for beloved children. They follow a traditional model, using large Slavonian barrels to age the wine (a very brief experiment with barrique was quickly abandoned), and rely on indigenous yeasts for fermentation. They are also organic. As Gigliola told me, 'it's not the new way, it's the way things should have always been done'.
Some modern-styled Brunellos don't taste as if they have been made with Sangiovese; but no danger of that here, where high vineyards bring a welcome freshness and balance to the final wine. This is Brunello with a sense of roots. Perfumed, intense, hedonistic, the 2013 Potazzine Brunello brings a fresh, textured mouthfeel to carry some classically Tuscan cherry and forest fruit aromas. /NT
2013 Brunello: 'Bright red. Sweet, spicy red cherry, blueberry compote and powdered rocks on the nose are complicated by herbs and ink. Rich, dense and multilayered, but with delightful vibrancy that gives this concentrated beauty’s liqueur-like richness of red and blue fruit flavors a graceful quality. Outstanding sugar-acid-tannin balance contributes to this wine’s many charms on the exhilaratingly long, lively finish. One of the best Brunellos of the 2013 vintage. 96 points.' - Ian D'Agata, vinous.com, April 2018
Offered subject to remaining unsold; for shipment 2018/19
