It`s not your usual wine story. Natalie Oliveros wasn`t born to an estate that had been worked by three generations of her forebears; instead, it was basement winemaking in the New York home of her Italian-American family. And it wasn`t her first career choice, either; she began by making herself more famous than she intended in the adult entertainment industry. But she had the wine bug. She began to work on a series of wines up and down Italy; one was a big hit and scored well with Parker. In 2011, she arrived at the Brunello estate La Fiorita, and by 2014 she was majority owner. She admits it has been a challenge to earn respect, but what follows is a story of potential unleashed.
La Fiorita lies in the south-eastern quadrant of Brunello (where a lot of Uncorked`s other favourite Brunello estates cluster. Sesti, Poggio di Sotto, Argiano, Il Poggione). It had always been good, but Natalie`s job was to guide things to the next level. She converted it to organics. The construction of a spacious, dedicated cellar made parcel-by-parcel vinification possible for the first time - which really matters when you are working with sites where grapes ripen at different times. And the cellar she has built is gravity-fed, which means finer tannins and a silkier texture in the wine. It has taken a decade, but as Natalie says, `there are no shortcuts to quality`.
The estate Brunello draws on fruit from three sites with very diverse soils and aspects, for a complex and harmonious whole; the 2016 enjoys an impressive nervous energy, offering classic Brunello aromas of cherry, black tea, warm earth and spices. The Riserva is always a single vineyard bottling; the warm vintage of 2015 draws on the fruit from the cool, high, rocky Pian Bossolino vineyard, making a concentrated and extraordinarily pretty wine. And Fiore di NO is Natalie`s own thumbprint on the estate, only made in the best vintages. It blends fruit from cool Pian Bossolino with its warm counterpoint Poggio al Sole (`hill in the sun`) for a wine that is as intense as it is linear, as elegant as it is powerful. (NT 20/07/21)