97 Brunello di Montelcino

No experience of the 97 but I had a Giocondo 88 Riserva in 2000 and it was hard as nails. My other bottle is for 2008-12

James James Dempster (remove nospam to reply by email)

You know you've had a good night when you wake up and someone's outlining you in chalk.

Hold for three to five years.

in article snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com, Uranium Committee at snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote on 09/13/04 2:18 AM:

From 1997 or from now?

From now. But it could be drinking very well now too. Holding on won't harm it.

With regard to the two 1986 bottles you had, if different producers, different sources (and hence storage conditions/provenance) the experience can vary dramatically with a mature wine. As for 1997, it depends more on the producer (their quality and style) than anything. I opened my 1st of 12 bottles of the regular Col d'Orcia and it was ready. I kind of wish I had opened one earler so I could have seen more of the life or evolution of the wine but I would already call the wine mature. If you have a Risvera bottling, most are probably not going to be ready for about another 3-5 years or so. The biggest factor in the end is your palate. Mature wine is definitely an acquired taste; I always try (sometimes unsuccessfully) to err on the side of too soon rather than too late.

Peter

A lot is going to depend on what wine we're talking about! A producer in a modern style (Altesino, Gaja Pieve di Santa Restituta), a moderately modern style (Banfi, Uccelliara), or a more traditional style (Tiezza, Scopetone)? I'm assuming we're not talking riservas here.

As a gross generalization on the vintage, based on my tastes, my (probably ill-founded) thought is that 1997 is not a vintage for very long aging in most cases. Bigger than the 1996s, but without the balancing acidity of say the '95s (my candidate for underated Brunello vintage of the 90s) & '99s (which I liked from couple of tastings, but too small a sample) . Most '97s are too tannic right now, but I'd say 10 years from now is outside limit of when I'll drink any. I only have a few '97s, all single bottles, if I had to schedule now I'd say Lecciaia and Banfi in 2 years, Antinori in 4-5, and Scopetone in 8-10. I'm no fan of Biondi-Santi but if I had one I'd hold 20. Dale

Dale Williams Drop "damnspam" to reply

Sorry, bot not recently enough. Today, at the local supermarket, a colleague of mine saw a bottle of 1994 "Il Carlomagno" brunello di montalcino, bottled by MDA s.r.l. It came for 14.50 euros, so we bought it and drank it in our lunch break, with some help from other colleagues too :) , with with some bread and prosciutto. It was nicely aged, with all of the signs of a good ageing both in color, granada red in the middle of the glass and and brick-like at the borders, and in nose, with a fantastic tertiary nose made of anything between leather and tobacco. The fruit was still present, I'm so sorry I didn't recognize what it was..., but the surprise has been the strong fresh shoulder this Brunello exibited while just open, and after some minutes the harsh tannins grew smoother and smoother, and the freshness went someway pleasantly down. Drinking it in something more than an hour, it was velvet since the twentieth minute. Very nice with parma ham and bread, this wine could have stood anything of really tasty, if not spicy :)

Vilco