Brunello di Montalcino Riserva DOCG 'Tenuta Greppo' 2013 (750 ml.) Biondi Santi

THE WINE

The Brunello di Montalcino Riserva 2013 Tenuta Greppo by Biondi Santi is an icon of winemaking tradition, the 40th Riserva since 1888. From vines over 50 years old, aged more than six years in Slavonian oak casks, it shows a complex bouquet with autumn undergrowth, aromatic herbs, porcini, and sour cherries, enriched by tobacco and balsamic hints. In youth it is austere yet graceful, with balance and finesse revealed in reserved delicacy. On the palate it strikes for its gustatory plasticity, unfolding in multiple directions with rising sensations. Elegant, long-lived (20–40 years), perfect with game, roasts, and aged cheeses, a true meditation wine.

THE STORY

The story of Brunello del Greppo begins with Clemente. Santi. Grandson ofGiorgio SantiOf which Prof. Baccio Baccetti writes in the publication "Culture and University? in Siena" - July 1993 - in the chapter "Sienese Naturalists," among other things:

The nephewClementeSon of Luigi Santi Petronilla Canali, a graduate in pharmacy from Pisa and a well-known writer, had vast land properties in Montalcino and Pienza, and dedicated much of his activity to agriculture, particularly at Greppo, the farm owned by his mother Canali.
His knowledge of chemistry and science helped him elevate his winemaking techniques to enviable levels during the last years of his life.
Before achieving recognition for his "chosen red wine (Brunello) from 1865," his Moscatello was also awarded at the 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris (an extraordinary enological recognition because at that time, the French considered themselves the only producers of quality wines in the world?). He produced red wines suitable for aging; he had identified racking and aging techniques in barrels that were more advanced than those of all his contemporaries.

Ferruccio Biondi SantiEstablished very strict production standards. Other producers in the early 1800s received important awards for their wines called "Brunello": Paccagnini, Anghirelli, Angelini, Vieri Padelletti, but none were able to maintain the continuity of their wines beyond the end of World War I. Ferruccio, drawing on the extraordinary experience of his maternal grandfather Clemente Santi, He dedicated himself competently to the Greppo company and, as often happens in the most fortunate historical decisions, owes something to adversity: in the mid-1800s, powdery mildew, then phylloxera, and then downy mildew struck Europe and thus also the Greppo.
He found himself facing an unprecedented threat due to phylloxera for the survival of his vineyards.
But while the winegrowers tried to quickly bottle the red wines (see also the "governo" of the new wine) for a quick financial return from the new vineyards, he looked towards new horizons and wanted to diversify with a wine that he believed would be long-lived by vinifying the Sangiovese in purity. In 1932, he was described as the inventor of Brunello by an Interministerial Commission that studied the Chianti region, including Montalcino. In his Greppo estate, as early as the end of the 1800s, he began a methodical mass selection of Sangiovese.
In the end, he completely replanted all his vineyards, grafting them onto wild rootstocks, using buds taken from those mother plants identified at Greppo: in a certain sense, he anticipated by about a century the trend in Tuscany to produce full-bodied red wines, vinifying the Sangiovese in purity. He died in 1917.

Other wineries also sought his advice from one end of the Peninsula to the other: from Lugana wine in Desenzano to... Garda, in Chianti in the Sienese area, at Fiorano of Prince Boncompagni in Rome, at Cirò in Calabria. His last act was, in March 1970, the ceremony of re-filling his old bottles of Brunello Riserva 1888 - 1891 - 1925 - 1945, in the Cantina del Greppo, in the presence of Mario Soldati, Luigi Veronelli and Paolo Maccherini: it can certainly be said that in that act, perhaps better than in any other, lies his long career as an expert wine connoisseur and that it still today confirms the supremacy, diversity, and typicity of Brunello del Greppo. The Brunello di Montalcino. Biondi Santi In short, it reaches the peak of its fame and splendor, according to the most attentive and refined connoisseurs around the world.

But that doesn't mean he rested on his parental laurels. In the meantime, the... D.O.C. had encouraged other producers to plant vineyards and improve techniques in the hope of being able to take advantage of the elevated image of Brunello. In the presence of a scenario like this, which has seen an exponential growth in the area of land registered for Brunello (from 76 hectares in 1967 to the current 2100 in 2009), Franco Biondi Santi He increased the production of Brunello del Greppo from 4 hectares, at the death of his father, to the current 25. He continued the strict traditional agronomic and cellar practices to consolidate the typicity and improve the quality of Brunello del Greppo, certain of matching (given the same use of the land and grape varieties) the great century-old reserves of his Brunello.
Thanks to a personal and constant promotion of its wines around the world, Franco Biondi Santi Since the '70s, he has succeeded in making people understand and appreciate the extraordinary uniqueness and quality of his Brunello del Greppo. In the future, the continuity of Greppo is represented by his two sons. Franco, , Jacopo and Alessandra both interested in the Greppo: Jacopo With a vivid imagination of wines (firmly convinced of the uniqueness of Brunello del Greppo), Alessandra is involved in promoting the company.