Brunello di Montalcino Riserva

The 1996 Riserva comes from the years when Soldera Case Basse still wore the Brunello di Montalcino DOCG - Gianfranco Soldera quit the appellation after the 2006 vintage, the last he released as Brunello, so this is the consortium-era article. 1996 gave a sharply reduced crop, and Soldera bottled a single wine from it, drawing fruit from both estate parcels, Case Basse and Intistieti, rather than keeping them apart. The year sits between the celebrated 1995 and 1997 as the cooler, more classical one.

Made the only way the estate ever made wine: organically farmed Sangiovese picked at low yields, destemmed without crushing, fermented spontaneously in conical Slavonian-oak vats with no temperature control, macerated around a month, then aged for years in large old casks with Giulio Gambelli's palate watching over the cellar. No fining, no filtration, minimal sulfur.