Brunello di Montalcino

J.G. Benda is John Gregory Benda, who left a London finance career to apprentice under Alessandro Mori at Il Marroneto, then bought the land in 2019 and set up at the very top of the Brunello zone: two hectares of vines hidden in eighteen hectares of Montalcino woodland, above 500 metres near Il Greppo and Case Basse. This is his first Brunello, and the high, cool site shows in it, nervy and fresh where valley-floor Brunello runs riper. Farmed by hand and biodynamically, fermented on wild yeasts, aged twenty-eight months in large old casks and bottled unfiltered. Traditional, territory-first Sangiovese in the Il Marroneto mould. 2021 was a classic, frost-thinned Montalcino vintage, fine-boned and sitting between 2016 and 2019. 2,450 bottles and 110 magnums, hand-numbered. 14.5%.