2012 Sassetti Livio Brunello di Montalcino

2012 Sassetti Livio Brunello di Montalcino

2012 Sassetti Livio Brunello di Montalcino, Sangiovese from Montalcino, Tuscany, Italy.

Livio Sassetti captures the rich, full-bodied, long-lived style of Brunello di Montalcino in this wine from the noted Tuscan zone south of Siena. This is a structured Brunello of magnificent depth, with dark, brooding concentration and sturdy acidity and tannins. Matured in large botti, this Sangiovese was crafted to be complex.

Pair it with a hearty osso buco, a gamey braise, or aged cheeses. This vintage was blessed with fine weather through the growing season and yielded expressive wines with assertive structure and long potential in the cellar.

Famous for its bold, layered and long-lived red, Brunello di Montalcino, the town of Montalcino is about 70 miles south of Florence, and has a warmer and drier climate than that of its neighbor, Chianti. The Sangiovese grape is king here, as it is in Chianti, but Montalcino has its own clone called Brunello.

For over three generations, the Sassetti family has been producing wine in Montalcino. The “Podere Pertimali” with its 16 hectares of vineyards is nestled on a slope in the Montosoli hill, north of Montalcino, one of the most favourable terroirs for Sangiovese in the area. Maintaining the family tradition, Livio has renovated and extended the vineyards, retaining the genetic material of the original vines and preserving their primigenial characteristics.

In 1967, Livio is among the founders of Consorzio del Brunello di Montalcino. In 1968, Livio built a terracotta wall in his cellar, to keep the old vintages of the wines produced by his family. Today, this collection counts over 1000 bottles, among which stands out the ‘grandmother’ of the current production, a bottle dated 1915!