Banfi Brunello di Montalcino 2021
£41.95
The wine
An intense and elegant Brunello. Ruby red with delicate garnet highlights, showing an intense bouquet of blackberry and blackcurrant combined with floral hints of rose that bring freshness and vitality. The body is full and powerful, with soft, smooth tannins well integrated against a marked acidity. A Brunello that is the synthesis of power and depth.
Brunello is Sangiovese Grosso grown on the hill of Montalcino, and appellation law demands a minimum of five years of ageing before release, two of them in oak. Montalcino sits further south and drier than Chianti, and the wines are correspondingly deeper and longer-lived. This is the estate bottling, drawn from across Banfi's holdings on the warmer southern slopes.
The producer
Banfi
View all Banfi winesBrothers John and Harry Mariani bought land at Montalcino in 1978 and, working with the winemaker Ezio Rivella, built one of the most ambitious estates in Tuscany. Banfi now farms around 850 hectares of vineyard on the southern side of the hill, making it by some distance the largest single holding in the appellation.
What sets it apart is the research. From 1980 the estate ran a programme of zonation studies, mapping soils and exposures plot by plot and trialling hundreds of Sangiovese clones to establish which slopes suited the grape best. That work underpins the single-vineyard Brunellos: Poggio alle Mura from the land around the medieval castle, Vigna Marrucheto, and Poggio all'Oro, released only in the greatest years. Banfi also made the first Supertuscan in Montalcino, Summus, in 1985.
Sustainability is taken seriously rather than decoratively. The estate holds Equalitas certification at both organisational and product level, and the Poggio all'Oro 2016 was the first Brunello ever to earn it. Banfi entered the Top 100 of the World's Best Vineyards in 2025.
