In the vineyards that surround the small walled hilltop village of Montalcino in southwest Tuscany, the Sangiovese grape is called Brunello. Amongst the approximately 250 producers currently bottling Brunello di Montalcino, La Torre’s wines are not the most well known, nor the most critically acclaimed. There is no lavish tasting room or hospitality personnel; just a small family farmhouse, a backyard of vines, and a cellar that painstakingly bottles a few hundred cases of this wine each year. There is no hype or marketing, here. There is, however, a decades-long history of producing extraordinarily long lasting and stunning wines.
Perched on a hilltop 5 miles south of the town of Montalcino, La Torre is one of coolest and highest elevation properties in the region. This unique site affords the wines remarkable freshness, energy, and minerality. In the cellar these qualities are preserved by a hands off approach to vinification: All grapes are destemmed and fermentation occurs naturally and slowly via indigenous airborne yeasts. There is no temperature control or any of the chemical additions or cellar tricks that have become common practice in this region. Mother nature is the winemaker, here: Warm temperatures kick start the fermentation in Autumn and then the cooler Winter season naturally clarifies the wine. Aging is carried out in a few small and very old French oak barrels for 18 months. The finished product is not filtered nor fined before bottling.
The 2013 Rosso di Montalcino is one of the great young Sangioveses you will encounter on the market. To the naked eye, it is dark crimson to garnet hues on the rim. On the nose, the wine is dominated by a textbook Montalcino aroma palate: black cherries, ripe red currants, fresh roses, dried blood orange peel, freshly oiled leather, red tobacco and dried clay. The palate is structured with formidable, yet still round and approachable tannins. Layers of black cherry, dried plums, wild Italian herbs and South Asian dried spices round out the palate. This bottle is absolutely delicious now as a “pop and pour” wine for your next dinner, but the secret here lies in its ageability. Unlike many Rosso di Montalcinos which are designed for young drinking, La Torre’s bottling always has potential to age 7-10 years or more if stored properly. I recently enjoyed a 1996 in Los Angeles and was blown away by its depth and structure. If drinking today, I encourage you to decant the wine for 1 hour before serving in large Bordeaux stems. In its current youthful and rambunctious state, it possesses ample power so I would recommend a serious dish with plenty of protein and fat as a companion. For a truly perfect pairing, my friend Rick Bakas’ legendary Pappardelle with Braised Beef Ragu.
