**Our friend DLynn Proctor keeps adding new accomplishments to his wine resume: Other than being one of the main characters in the documentary “SOMM”, he recently served as Associate Producer of the Netflix film “Uncorked” and co-founded Wine Unify, an organization dedicated to welcoming and amplifying minority voices in the wine industry—all while working as Director at Fantesca Estate & Winery in California’s Napa Valley. We passed him the mic for this very special offer from Tuscany’s mythical Stella di Campalto! — Ian Cauble, Founder & Master Sommelier
In recent years, my professional life has centered around “New World” wines, but that doesn’t mean I don’t seize every opportunity to taste the greats of the Old World. The same goes for the Californian winemakers I cross paths with in Napa: There isn’t one recipe for great wine. There are many. A global perspective is vitally important, and to taste the wines of Stella di Campalto is to understand the Tuscan region of Montalcino, and its Sangiovese grape, in a new and profound way. I’m not recommending today’s Rosso di Montalcino in a keep-up-with-the-Joneses, wine-of-the-moment kind of way; I’m saying that it will redefine for you what this grape and terroir are capable of. Perhaps you know Stella di Campalto already: She’s hardly new on the scene, having acquired her picture-book estate in 1992, but in recent years her wines have achieved the kind of cult status reserved for very few. Hers are the rare examples of Brunello and Rosso di Montalcino that favor finesse over power; for me, they’re wines that dance along the lines of great Vosne-Romanée from Burgundy. Normally, I’d have to visit an elite restaurant (and pay a premium) to get my hands on a bottle, so I’m hoping to pry a few away from Ian & Co. along with all of you. I’m a sommelier at heart, so when the opportunity to experience greatness presents itself, I’m compelled to act!
[PLEASE NOTE: SommSelect is offering this wine as a ‘pre-sell’ as we await the arrival of our limited parcel into port. We expect to ship the wine to customers the week of January 18, 2021. Up to three bottles per customer.]
I was first introduced to Stella Viola di Campalto, her biodynamically farmed vineyards, and her impeccable wines in 2010. I had just finished up at VinItaly, the huge annual Italian wine trade fair, and was doing some traveling to taste some great wine outside the confines of a convention center. When it came time to go to Montalcino, it seemed, based on all the intel I was getting from my peers, that all roads led to Stella di Campalto. And let me tell you: It did not disappoint!
Stella’s estate is situated in the southeast corner of the Montalcino wine zone, near the hamlet of Castelnuovo dell’Abate. Known previously as Podere San Giuseppe, the property had been long abandoned when Stella’s family acquired it in the early 1990s (fun fact: she got access to the land via a grant program in Italy that was designed to recruit women into the agricultural sector). She started from scratch (which included living for a few years in a dilapidated farmhouse with no heat or electricity) and insisted on organic and biodynamic farming from the jump, planting 13 acres of Sangiovese to complement an existing 100-year-old grove of olive trees. Each of her high-elevation vineyard plots (altitudes range from 780-1,100 feet) is vinified separately in large wooden vats (à la Soldera) using only ambient yeasts; the wines are then aged in 15- and 25-hectoliter casks, as well as some 900-liter French oak tonneaux, before being bottled unfined and unfiltered.
Over the years, I’ve come across Stella di Campalto wines at Trattoria Cammillo in Florence (one of my favorites) and at some of New York’s top Italian spots, and they’ve only continued to get better with each new vintage. As you might expect given the justified hype around the vintage, this ’15 is mind-blowing. Forget that this is the Rosso, not the Brunello, di Montalcino—this transcends those classifications and, frankly, will put most Brunellos to shame. To really appreciate Stella di Campalto, you have to forget the conventional wisdom on Brunello being a “big” wine: Pale garnet-red in the glass and loaded with floral aromatics, you couldn’t be sure you weren’t drinking aged red Burgundy if served this wine blind. The aromas are an enchanting mix of sappy red cherry, raspberries, rose petals, blood orange, white pepper, underbrush, and sweet baking spices. The signature Sangiovese ‘woodsiness’ is there but the purity of fruit is truly exceptional and the texture is silky and beautifully integrated—befitting a wine that spent an extended period (34 months) aging in bottle before release (that’s a really long time for Rosso di Montalcino, which by law can be released a year after the vintage). It is drinking beautifully now and will continue to do so over the next 5-7 years if kept well; decant it 30 minutes before serving in Burgundy stems and prepare to re-think everything you thought you knew about Sangiovese. This is special. I’m so glad I got the chance to talk about it—now it’s time to drink some!
