Italian Wine Adventure #14: Rosso di Montalcino! (Brunello's baby brother)

Show Notes

Episode 153: Italian Wine Adventure #14: Rosso di Montalcino! 00:00

Hello! And welcome to The Wine Pair Podcast. I’m Joe, your sommelier of reasonably priced wine, and this is my wife and my wine pairing partner in crime, Carmela. And we are The Wine Pair! 

If you are new to our podcast, here is a quick orientation! Each week, we explore a different wine varietal or blend — like Picpoul or Zinfandel or Rosso di Montalcino — and we dive into what these wines are, how to make great wine choices and what makes finding new wines so fun to learn about.  Our goal is to help you expand your wine knowledge in a fun way that is understandable and accessible to regular people, not just wine nerds!  We also taste and review 2-3 wines under $25 each, and share our scores and recommendations to help you find great wines without breaking the bank. So, thank you so much for joining us! And, we are proud to say that Decanter Magazine calls us fun, irreverent, chatty, and entertaining. 

Well, Carmela, it’s our first episode of the new year together, and our first episode for tasting wine, and as you may have noticed from our orientation, those of you who are faithful listeners, we have officially made a change related to the wines we are going to taste and review on the podcast! We have increased the ceiling for wines we are considering “reasonably priced” from $20 to $25. And we don’t do that lightly, because our goal, afterall, is to help you find great wines without breaking the bank, and I am not going to pretend that $25 for a bottle of wine is exactly cheap. But it is cheaper than buying a glass of wine in Las Vegas, by the way. I paid, and I am not kidding, $45 for a glass of wine at some fancy shmancy steak house. Las Vegas is expensive, bro!

But back to the wine and our podcast. We have decided to do increase the wine price ceiling for a few reasons. First, wine prices, like everything else, are going up, and that is likely to continue, and potentially even get worse. Second, it is becoming harder to explore new wine regions and varietals without having to go above $20. Now, we are still going to aim for wines under $20, but we are giving ourselves a bit more leeway. And, that is, honestly, one of the reasons why we switched from tasting three wines in every episode to doing two in most episodes - along with not wanting to be wasteful, because drinking three bottles of wine in a week is a lot, but also because we buy our own wine, we don’t have any donated, and so we are just being a bit more frugal ourselves. 

Ok, now, along with that new information, this is also our first Italian Wine Adventure for the year of 2025, and the first one we have done since early September, and that seems like a long time, so we have a bunch of Italian Wine Adventures we are going to do over the next several months because we have to catch up - and hopefully we are heading to Italy this year!

So, today we are learning about and tasting and reviewing the Tuscan wine called Rosso di Montalcino that listener Christine T told us about a month ago was her new favorite wine. And there you go.

In the next section of the podcast, we are going to go into more detail about Rosso di Montalcino and how it is made and what is special about it, but one of the first things we have to mention is that this wine sounds a lot like one of the most famous and prized and expensive wines from Italy called Brunello di Montalcino, and there is a reason for that! 

Rosso di Montalcino and Brunello di Montalcino not only have the same last name, they are both red wines produced in the Montalcino region of Tuscany in Italy, and both are made from 100% Sangiovese grapes. So, right from the get-go, you know that they are similar wines. In fact, many people call Rosso di Montalcino “Baby Brunello.”

Before we get too far, we should talk a little bit about the specific grape in Rosso di Montalcino and Brunello because it is actually a mutation of Sangiovese - which is the grape in Chianti wine, which is also from Tuscany. And this mutation is called Sangiovese Grosso, sometimes also known by the name Brunello. Grosso means large in Italian, and, as you would expect, the grapes in Sangiovese Grosso are larger than the standard Sangiovese grape. More on why that is important will come later in the next section. Lots of suspense, I know. 

But, for the differences between Rosso di Montalcino and Brunello:

• Brunello has the higher Italian wine classification of DOCG vs. Rosso di Montalcino which has DOC status. This has to do with regulations on how they are produced and made, and the expected quality, with DOCG being designated the best of the best.
• Rosso di Montalcino can be released on the market on the 1st day of September of the year following the harvest, and aging in oak is not required. Brunello, on the other hand, must be aged for 4 years before it is released, and two of those years must be on oak, and at least 4 months in the bottle. It can only be released on January 1, five years following the harvest. And Riserva Brunello wines have to age for an additional year!
• A few other differences: Rosso di Montalcino is considered a fresher and more approachable style, while Brunello is considered a big, bold, intense, and complex wine. Brunello also tends to be much more expensive, and it is rare to find a Brunello under $50, and usually they are more in the $75 plus range. Sometimes much more expensive than that!

So, after that quick lesson on the differences and similarities between Rosso di Montalcino and Brunello di Montalcino, I think it’s time we learned a bit more about this wine we are going to drink today, and we have two Rosso di Montalcinos to taste and review to see if either, or both, are worth seeking out . . . 

But first . . . we have to do our shameless plug.

Thank you for listening to us and for supporting our show, and if you haven’t  had the chance to do so yet, now would be the perfect time to follow or subscribe to our podcast  - it is a free way to support us, and then you never have to miss a show!  - and a huge thank you to all of you who have subscribed already! 

And, another great way to support is to leave a nice rating and review on our website or on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or other podcast app so we can continue to grow our listeners.

You can also follow us and see pictures of the wines we are tasting and trying today and weird AI pictures I like to make on Instagram at thewinepairpodcast, we are also Bluesky as well and we post differently on there than we do on Instagram. And, you can contact us on our website thewinepairpodcast.com, and you can sign up for our email newsletter there and get news and food and wine pairing ideas and more! And, on our website you can now find links in a section called “Shop Wine” where you can buy the wines that we rate as buys in each episode. 

And we want to make content you care about and you like, so send us a note and tell us what you like and don’t like, if there are wines you want us to try or wine making areas of the world you are curious about - and we’ll take care of it! And since it has been a while since we have recorded an episode, Carmela, we have a few shout outs

• And thanks to Adrienne aka @artmetalgirl on Instagram for sharing her picture of one of our stickers and a Rosé wine she finally found that she liked! 
• And another shoutout to Christine R aka Tips2liveby1 on Instagram and on Blue Sky for the recommendation. 
• And a shoutout to Justice Okai-Allotey for a super nice reference to us on Blue Sky as well. 
• A shout out to Christine T - we have a lot of Christines who follow our show - who reached out on Spotify to she liked the story from Rob and Tim from Invivo wine and how they started their wine company. 
• And, one more shoutout to Shekar who runs Nalla, and always reaches out to share wines and events with us. BTW, Shekar is in LA, as is another listener Emma, and so we hope he and all of our listeners in the Los Angeles area are doing ok with these horrible fires. 

And, as we do every week, we’ll tell you someone we think you should recommend The Wine Pair Podcast to - because the best way for us to grow listeners is by word of mouth when you tell your family and friends about us. This week, we want you to recommend us to anyone who has been looking for an Italian red wine to fall in love with, because this may just be the wine to do it. 


RESEARCH ARTICLES AND LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE

• https://www.wine-searcher.com/regions-rosso+di+montalcino#:~:text=Rosso%20di%20Montalcino%20is%20a%20denomination%20for%20red%20wines%20made,younger%20vines%20of%20new%20plantings. 
• https://www.decanter.com/learn/what-is-rosso-di-montalcino-ask-decanter-454786/ 
• https://www.newwinereview.com/what-to-drink/rosso-di-montalcino-brunello/?nab=0 
• https://www.jamessuckling.com/wine-tasting-reports/rosso-di-montalcino-attractive-alternative-brunello
• https://italianwine.guide/regions-en-gb/toscany-en-gb/rosso-di-montalcino-doc-en-gb/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1vD6Z-wAJw
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeYT8ERNeyg 
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no0l-2qAPqQ 
• https://vinous.com/articles/the-magic-of-2022-rosso-di-montalcino-sep-2024 
• https://www.wine-searcher.com/m/2023/05/the-rise-of-rosso-di-montalcino?srsltid=AfmBOopkFOk7Yz5cPYTPTtn8Lt9opNa5cBBL5yLtEsj8CPP6vfrWf6Eu
• https://thecorkscrewconcierge.com/2020/06/sangiovese-pairing-rosso-di-montalcino/ 
• https://primalwine.com/blogs/grape-varietals/sangiovese-grosso-natural-wine#:~:text=Sangiovese%20Grosso%20is%20a%20natural,its%20berries%20than%20standard%20Sangiovese. 
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangiovese
• https://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment-life/restaurants/article314555.html 
• https://winefolly.com/tips/terroir-definition-for-wine/
• https://newmanwinerevue.com/2019/02/19/montalcino/ 
• https://italianwinecentral.com/region-province/toscana/ 
• https://www.winespectator.com/articles/in-italian-wine-what-s-the-difference-between-doc-and-docg 
• https://www.wineenthusiast.com/basics/advanced-studies/limestone-soil-wine/?srsltid=AfmBOooD5RXS97AjT84rvr55tbckR5npJeMaDqpZRkqal777U0fW0yIP 
• https://www.wineenthusiast.com/basics/minerality-mean-wine-term/
• https://www.texaswinecollective.com/blog/D-lestage--An-Important-Winemaking-Technique 

Topic: WTF is Rosso di Montalcino? 12:56

So, let’s learn a little more about just what the fuck Rosso di Montalcino is, and, as we should, we will start again with the grape. So, as we have said many times, what can make Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese wines confusing is that very often they are named for the region rather than the grape they are made from, and Rosso di Montalcino is a perfect example of that. 

As we mentioned, Rosso di Montalcino is made from the Sangiovese Grosso grape, which is the same grape in Brunello, and is a variant of the Sangiovese grape again most famously known as the main grape in Chianti wine. It is larger than Sangiovese, and has thicker skins, and it also ripens a bit later. It makes a wine that is often considered more robust than regular Sangiovese with more tannin, while still maintaining a relatively high acidity. And that acidity makes it good with food, remember that!

So, the next question may be why is the wine called Rosso di Montalcino? Why not just call the wine Sangiovese Grosso and be done with it? That is a great question, and the answer is a little tricky to explain. First, let’s start with some more basics:

• Rosso in Italian means red, so you can interpret this wine as being called “red wine of Montalcino.” Which is a bit strange since Brunello is also a red wine from Montalcino in Tuscany. 
• By the way, do not confuse this wine with Montepulciano d’Abruzzo which is made from the Montepulciano grape and comes from Abruzzo OR with Vino Nobile di Montepulciano which is from an area called Montepulciano in Tuscany and is also made from Sangiovese, and so is a completely different wine than either Rosso di Montalcino or Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. But let’s skip that because I probably just made you very confused. 
• The reason winemakers want to be really picky about calling out the place of the wine rather than just the grape is because the same grape can create different versions of the wine based on the terroir - which is a really common and nerdy wine term which is just a fancy way of saying “the place.” Just remember that in the wine world, the place a wine comes from matters because each place will have different growing conditions, soil, weather, sun exposure, and even winemaking techniques. So, that is the reason these winemakers are so fussy about naming the wine for the place. In France, it can be so fussy that the name of the wine is based on the specific Chateau.
• In the earlier section, we talked about some of the differences between Brunello and Rosso di Montalcino, and one is that Brunello gets the DOCG designation, with the G meaning guaranteed, while Rosso di Montalcino gets the lower, but still important DOC classification. Both mean that a wine is from a specific place and is made in specific ways, as we explained above, but the DOCG is rarer and held in higher esteem. There are 330 DOCs in Italy, and only 77 DOCGs. So, one of the main reasons that the wine is called Rosso di Montalcino and not just Sangiovese Grosso is that they want to keep the wine distinct from other wines made from the same grape, namely the more prestigious Brunello. 

We are not going to go into a ton about some of these more granular pieces of information like DOC or DOCG, but we have lots of links to articles and videos in our show notes - did you know we have show notes - so if you want to know more just go to our website and click on this episode and then scroll down to the show notes and you can learn a ton more. 

But, back to Rosso di Montalcino. If you look at a wine map of Tuscany, you will see that Montalcino is in the south central area of Tuscany, about an hour's drive south of the beautiful city of Siena, and about two hour's drive south of Florence. 

Of course, Tuscany is famous for Chianti wine, which, as we mentioned, is made from the “regular” Sangiovese grape, but you may ask are there differences between Chianti and Rosso di Montalcino?

• Rosso di Montalcino must be made from 100% Sangiovese Grosso, while Chianti is only required to be 70% Sangiovese, although many winemakers do make a 100% Sangiovese Chianti.
• Montalcino is a bit warmer than the Chianti region, and yes, Chianti wine can only come from the Chianti region in Tuscany. The soil in Montalcino is also a bit more consistent, and is mostly limestone, which holds water well and is supposed to help with acidity and what wine geeks call “minerality” which is a fancy way of saying you can taste some rock or slate or even gunpowder.
• Regular Chianti, as opposed to Chianti Riserva or Gran Selezione, is often released earlier after harvest than Rosso di Montalcino, and may not have the same richness as Rosso di Montalcino. 

But, look, the bottom line is this. If you are not a huge fan of Chianti and you are wondering what all of the fuss is about, and you have not yet been exposed to Brunello or bigger Italian wines like Barbaresco or Barolo or Taurasi, then we strongly suggest you try Rosso di Montalcino. It’s like finding your life partner. It may just be that you have not met the right person yet. Same with your Italian wine. You may just not have tried all of the Italian wines we are trying to expose you to, so get off your duff and try some out!

So, on that note, I think it’s time to learn a little more about the specific wines we are drinking today. Whaddya say?


Rosso di Montalcino Wines We Chose for This Episode 20:15

The wines we have chosen for this episode are under $25 - and we are going to have to get used to saying that after say “under $20” for the previous several years, and both of them should be relatively easy to find because I bought one of them on wine.com, and one I bought at a local QFC store which is owned by Kroger. I also saw some at our local wine shop called Mad Wine / Esquin here in Seattle, where I picked up a bunch of wine for future episodes as well.

So, my point is that while it is not going to be as easy to find as Chianti, you should be able to find Rosso di Montalcino, and you can definitely order it from your local wine shop if they don’t carry it, but I think they probably will. And you can find it under $25, but it may be a bit hard to find under $20.

The first wine we are going to drink is the 2020 Camigliano Rosso di Montalcino (spell it) and this wine is organic, if that is important to you. The wine is fermented in stainless steel vats and the tech sheet mentions a technique I was not familiar with called délestage. 

Without going into a ton of detail, délestage is a French winemaking technique that means “making lighter” and in it, the winemaker separates the grape solids - like skins, and other particles - from the juice to make it less dense. Sometimes it is called “rack and return.” The winemaker drains the juice from the solids into a separate vessel, and then returns the juice to the solids in the fermentation vessel. Doing this is said to soften the wine, reduce the tannins, and make a mellower finish. It is an alternate way of extracting flavors from the juice and berries than the more common “punch-down” method where the gunk floats to the top of the wine in the vessel and then is punched down to reintroduce the solids to the wine. 

Finally, this wine is aged for 6 months in French and Slovenian oak, which is more mellow than American oak, and is bottle aged for 4 months. This is a super dry wine with almost no residual sugar, but is also pretty high in alcohol at 14.5%. 

The second wine we are going to taste and review is the Voliero Rosso di Montalcino and this one got some really good scores including a 93 from Vinous and 92 from Jeb Dunnuck. It was a little harder to find out too much about this wine, so I will share what I can. 

The winery says it was fermented spontaneously, which is kind of cool because that means they are using yeasts right from the grape skins, and in stainless vessels for three weeks, and then aged in French and Slovenian oak for 10 months, so a bit more oak aging on this one than the Camigliano. 

Evidently , this wine was first created by Andrea Coronesi for his restaurant, but is now more widely available, obviously since we are drinking it today, and he makes a very prestigious but hard to find wine under the name Uccelliera. Under both labels he also makes Brunello, and wine reviewers love his wine, so my point here is that if this is a good wine, despite the fact that it is just at the edge of our new price ceiling, it will be a killer deal. 

But, I think that is enough information - let’s get to drinking! We’ll take a quick break and be right back. And, if you have these wines or similar wines, drink along with us!

LINKS TO SOURCES FOR THESE SPECIFIC WINES

• https://viaswine.com/website/products/camigliano-rosso-di-montalcino-doc/ 
• https://permanwine.com/products/voliero-rosso-di-montalcino-21 

2020 Camigliano Rosso di Montalcino, 2021 Voliero Rosso di Montalcino Wine Tasting, Pairing, and Review 25:15

Wine: Camigliano Rosso di Montalcino (Click here to find this wine on wine.com. We may be compensated if you purchase)
Region: Italy, Tuscany
Year: 2020
Price: $22.99
Retailer: wine.com
Alcohol: 14.5%
Grapes: Sangiovese Grosso
Professional Rating: WE 89

What we tasted and smelled in this Camigliano Rosso di Montalcino:

• Color: Pretty, like a Pinot Noir, translucent medium red, almost twinkles
• On the nose: Very nice, cherry, cherry cordial, some alcohol, rich, dark chocolate, gunpowder, rock on the swirl, plum, cranberry, some tartness
• In the mouth: Cherry, plum, cranberry, pomegranate, blueberry jam, raspberry, rich, smooth, light but firm tannin, fruity, can age for a while. Well balanced. Reminds a bit of a Pinot Noir. 

Food to pair with this Camigliano Rosso di Montalcino: Red meat, burgers, steak, pizza, meat sauce pasta, bolognese, lasagna, ragu, a good dinner wine, would be good for a sophisticated dinner
 
As a reminder on our rating scale, we rate on a scale of 1-10, with no half points, where 7 and above means that we would buy it, and 4 and below means that we are likely to pour it down the sink, and a 5 or 6 means we are likely to drink it and finish it, but we are probably not going to buy it. 

Camigliano Rosso di Montalcino Wine Rating: 

• Joe: 9/10
• Carmela: 8/10

Wine: Voliero Rosso di Montalcino (Click here to find this wine on wine.com. We may be compensated if you purchase)
Region: Italy, Tuscany
Year: 2021
Price: $24.99
Retailer: QFC (Kroger)
Alcohol: 14.5%
Grapes: Sangiovese Grosso
Professional Rating: V 93, JD 92

What we tasted and smelled in this Voliero Rosso di Montalcino:

• Color: Translucent red, a touch on the dull side, some brown on the edge
• On the nose: Pleasant, smoke, needs to open a bit, gunsmoke and slate on the swirl, rose, cherry, strawberry, fruity, jammy
• In the mouth: More tannin, feels tight, more austere, serious, great with food, seems young, juicy, cherry, rose petal, rock or chalk or ash or gunsmoke on the end.

Food to pair with this Voliero Rosso di Montalcino: Very versatile, spicy Italian food, spicy Thai food, could be chilled a bit, wood fired spicy pizza, Calabrese peppers

Voliero Rosso di Montalcino Wine Rating: 

• Joe: 10/10
• Carmela: 8/10

Which one of these are you finishing tonight?

• Carmela: Camigliano Rosso di Montalcino
• Joe: Voliero Rosso di Montalcino

Taste profiles expected from Rosso di Montalcino  39:15

• General 
  • Red cherries, cranberries, pomegranate, raspberries, and plums. Floral notes, violet, tea. Thyme, sage, balsamic. Tomato, spice, vanilla, graphite. 
• Camigliano Rosso di Montalcino
  • WE: This young, juicy red offers aromas of grape must, ripe berry and blue flower. The tangy, chewy palate doles out succulent Marasca cherry, spiced blackberry and hints of baking spice alongside solid, close-grained tannins that leave a firm, rather drying finish
  • John Fodera: In the glass, a pretty medium violet color. Really pretty nose. So fresh! Crushed berry, soft sandalwood, touch of vanilla and fresh flowers too. In the mouth, my first reaction was “wow”! Beautiful wild berry, touches of vanilla, raspberry and dusty mineral are just splendid. Fresh, ripe, with pretty sweetness and a juicy long finish. Amazing Rosso!
• Voliero Rosso di Montalcino
  • V: Dusty, floral and impossible to ignore, the 2021 Rosso di Montalcino lifts from the glass with a gorgeous bouquet of rose petals, dried cherries and autumnal spice. Silky yet pure and lifted, it flows across the palate with a tactile blend of red wild berries and minerals. The 2021 takes on a saline tinge while finishing long and staining, leaving a coating of fine tannins that promise many years of positive evolution. This is a massive success for the vintage.
  • JD: These wines from Voliero are expressive of their southern locale. The 2021 Rosso Di Montalcino is fresh with sun-ripened herbs, tobacco, and perfectly ripe red plum, and on the palate, it is medium to full-bodied, with a core of fleshy fruit, ripe tannins, and a structured finish that never turns bitter. A lovely wine with a lot to offer, it will be great to drink over the next 5 years.

Verdict on Rosso di Montalcino: Great wine for the two of us to drink together. If you have friends that are doubters on Chianti have them try this wine

Outro and how to find The Wine Pair Podcast 42:05

Ok, so, Carmela, it’s time for us to go, but before we do, we want to thank you very much for listening to us - and if you haven’t done so yet, now would be the perfect time to follow or subscribe to our podcast and also a fantastic time to leave us a nice rating and review on our website or Apple podcasts or other podcast app - and it is an awesome and free way to support us and help us grow listeners.

We would also love to hear from you about a wine you would like us to taste and review. You can leave a message for us on our website thewinepairpodcast.com and you can join our email newsletter there - and if you missed our latest newsletter, email me and I will send it to you. You can do that by reaching out at joe@thewinepairpodcast.com. And tell us some things you want to hear us do, or not hear us do!

Alright, with that, we are going to sign off, so thanks again, and we will see you next time. And, as we say, life is short, so stop drinking shitty wine.

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