Quercecchio, Brunello di Montalcino DOCG

If you’ve recently dined at A-list Italian restaurants in San Francisco or LA, you’re likely well familiar with today’s exceptional and improbably low-priced micro-production Brunello. In the last 4–5 weeks, it feels like every Italy-focused sommelier on the West Coast simultaneously fell in love with today’s wine. I can’t quite explain how this long-aged, painstakingly crafted, pitch-perfect Brunello from a small vineyard wedged between multiple regional icons is priced so modestly, but I’m not arguing! And if you share my passion for the highest tier of “vintage-style” Italian reds like Cappellano Barolo and Roagna Barbaresco, you must add this bottle to your cellar. Because Brunello this good, at this price, essentially doesn’t exist, and given the limited production (100 cases in the US!), it won’t last long!

One thing I love about wine is that, just when I think I’ve tasted every great bottle from every A-list appellation on Earth, something undiscovered lands in my glass and blows my mind. Such is the case with Quercecchio’s superb, micro-production Brunello di Montalcino. This beautiful wine is brought to us by 5’3”, 86-year-old Maria-Grazia Salvioni and her nephew Matteo. The two have dedicated their lives to bottling small batches of uber-classic Brunello di Montalcino in their family’s 700-year-old former monastery-turned-winery. The property sits high up in the Brunello sub-village of Tavernelle, wedged between Tuscan icon Soldera and the Gaja family’s legendary Sugarille and Rennina vineyards. The village of Tavernelle is renowned for producing Brunello of uncommon elegance and vivid, almost psychedelic aromatic detail. This is Brunello for terroir nerds and lovers of Burgundy’s finest reds. Let me spell this out a second time: this is NOT the shiny, dark purple, 16% ABV Tuscany-by-way-of-Australia Brunello you see on the shelf for $41 at BevMo or Costco. No way. This is achingly detailed, patiently handcrafted, REAL Brunello magic!

Nestled just southwest of the hilltop town of Montalcino, the Brunello subzone of Tavernelle enjoys a privileged position roughly 5–7 kilometers from the village center, with many vineyards facing south and southwest toward the warm Orcia Valley. This orientation provides abundant sunlight and excellent air circulation, helping Sangiovese achieve remarkable ripeness while still preserving the freshness and aromatic lift that define the finest wines in Tavernelle. The soils of Tavernelle are particularly prized, combining galestro schist, alberese limestone, clay, and rocky marl that naturally restrict vine vigor and produce wines of exceptional concentration and structure, but also a “fifth gear” of aromatic detail and energetic lift. The area is home to some of the most revered names in Italian wine, including the legendary Gianfranco Soldera estate at Case Basse, as well as the celebrated Sugarille and Rennina vineyards owned by the Gaja dynasty. Brunellos from Tavernelle are often among the most profound and age-worthy in the appellation, marrying refined red fruit and mineral intensity with the muscular depth, haunting perfume and power that make Montalcino world-famous.

The 2021 Quercecchio Brunello di Montalcino shows a brilliant deep garnet core with youthful ruby highlights, staining the glass with the concentration and extract characteristic of the region’s outstanding 2021 vintage. The nose is intensely expressive and classically Tuscan, unfolding with aromas of black cherry, bramble fruit, blood orange, cedar, tobacco leaf, baking spice, and crushed stone, all lifted by the savory herbal complexity and three-dimensional red fruit that define great Tavernelle Brunello. Warm days and cool nights during the exceptional 2021 growing season yielded a Brunello of both power and precision, combining generous fruit depth with vibrant acidity, firm mineral structure, and remarkably polished tannins that carry through an exceptionally long, saline finish. Served ideally at 60°–65°F in a large Burgundy bowl or Brunello-specific stem, the wine gains tremendous aromatic breadth and textural refinement as it opens in the glass over the course of an evening. Powerful, noble, and profoundly food-friendly, but also extraordinarily elegant, this is exactly the kind of soulful Brunello that becomes utterly transcendent alongside a deeply savory slow-cooked dish like osso buco-style pork shank. Just keep in mind: there are only 100 cases of this wine imported into the US each year, and they have been selling briskly for the last month — so I urge you to grab a few extra bottles today if you have the space. This bottle is built to improve and only grow more transcendent throughout each of the next 10 to 12 years.