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Boris· @Dominika P
Soldera Case Basse
Brunello di Montalcino Riserva
1996
4.6
Region
Italy › Toscana › Montalcino › Brunello di Montalcino DOCG
Type
red · still
Grapes
Sangiovese
Alcohol
14%
Volume
750 mL
Tasting Notes(1)
4.6
Thirty years have turned the fruit inward - dark cherries and dried wild berries folded into dried flowers and forest floor, with roasted meat, leather and ash rising as it sits. The frame is muscular but never coarse: powdery, velvety tannins around a taut core of sweet fruit, the acidity soothing rather than sharp. The finish is extremely long and tangy, mineral with an odd, lovely flash of tamarind now and then.
About
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.
