Rosso del Palazzone 01/15 is in the cellar!

The cellar is crammed with cages full of our newest Rosso del Palazzone, ready to be labelled, packaged and sent off around the world.The first Rosso del Palazzone was released 5 years ago. Because our Brunello vineyards are in three very different areas of Montalcino, the grapes from each vineyard show very diverse qualities due to the difference in soil, age of vines, position and altitude. The grapes are fermented and vinified separately. We create an ideal composition for each vintage of Brunello by combining our three Sangiovese vineyards in different proportions, depending on that year’s vintage. Occasionally we choose not to include a barrel (or part of a barrel) of wine from one vineyard or the other in order to maintain a perfect balance in our Brunello.  What to do with this extra wine not needed for the Brunello?  Make more wine!

As in years past, this wine blends from our three vineyards as well as from different vintages.  This is the seventh bottling of this wine, starting in 2010, with each bottling varying slightly in its vintage composition (while remaining 100% Sangiovese). This year’s bottling is composed of four vintages, spanning a decade, and including two five star years for Montalcino. It is made up of 2004, 2009, 2012 and 2014 vintages, in more or less equal parts. When I present this wine on site with our regular visitors it has become a standing joke that I always consider the latest bottling of our Rosso to be the best we have ever made. 01/15 is no exception. This vino rosso is ready to drink immediately without the need for further aging, though of course can be cellared as well, if you have the patience to wait. For more on how our wine gets bottled, you can read this post about a previous Rosso bottling. The first order of this wine has already been placed by our US distributor, Domenico Valentino, where it should be available from March 2015 and bottles will shortly leave us to find good homes in Belgium and Japan.