Ninety-nine points from Kerin O'Keefe for Wine Enthusiast, and 97 from Robert Parker. Only 3,200 bottles made, and now fully mature. Fully mature now, and squarely in its finest period.
Deep garnet with brick edges. The nose is captivating and fully developed: pressed violet, dark spice, perfumed berry, new leather and balsamic eucalyptus, alongside smoky, meaty woodland notes. On the palate the wine is juicy and precise, with Marasca cherry, black raspberry, tobacco and liquorice, carried by dusty tannins that mount slowly and a creamy yet firm structure. Fifteen years after the harvest everything has fallen into place. Drinking window 2021 to 2036, so squarely in its best period. Around 18 degrees, with game, truffle or an aged cheese — or simply on its own. Of this vintage we have eleven bottles left.
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 Riserva has existed only five times: 2004, 2006, 2011, 2015 and 2019. It is made only when the vineyard asks for it, comes from Le Prata — the highest plot, at 507 metres — and matures for some fifty months in a single thirty-hectolitre cask of Slavonian oak, followed by more than a year in bottle.
2011 received four stars from the Consorzio. For this wine that proved more than enough.
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