Three litres from the five-star 2019 vintage — four bottles in one. A format the estate rarely makes, and one that keeps the wine young for years longer.
Deep ruby with garnet edges. The nose gives cherry and small red woodland fruits, liquorice and spice, with wild flowers and savoury herbs behind. On the palate the wine surprises with more weight and concentration than a Rosso usually carries; refined at the attack, full and suave through the middle, with tannins tending towards velvet. From three litres the whole is noticeably younger and more closed than from bottle: the fruit leads and the structure holds back. Cellar it a few more years, or decant a good two hours ahead. Around 17 degrees, with a roast that gives the table time.
In Montalcino, grandparents call their granddaughters potazzine, after the small, brightly coloured birds of the Tuscan countryside. That is what their grandmother called Viola and Sofia, the daughters of owner Gigliola Giannetti — and the estate grew in step with them: Viola was born in 1993, the founding year, and when Sofia arrived in 1996 two more hectares took the total to five.
The Rosso here is no by-product. Almost half the Brunello production is declassified into Rosso: the same vineyards, the same wild yeasts, the same forty-day fermentation — only twelve months in the large Slavonian casks instead of nearly four years. Unfiltered, like everything here.
With total production of some 35,000 bottles a year, Le Potazzine is small. Large formats emerge from that in single figures.
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