The Pendulum Swings: 2012 Brunello di Montalcino
BY ERIC GUIDO |
Two thousand twelve is a vintage I have always enjoyed, but I also questioned just how well the wines would age. I was working in retail when I started tasting the 2012s. At that time, the first bottles of Brunello would be placed on presale in December of the year before they were released, yet the earliest critical reviews would come out only the following February or later. Tasting deeply and broadly through as many Brunellos as possible was paramount to making decisions, simply because a buyer had to depend solely on their palate to judge which wines were the best. Making buying decisions while tasting the 2012s at trade events, importer portfolio presentations and Benvenuto Brunello was challenging because the wines were so widely appealing.
The 2012s were dark in color, forward and ripe in style, yet they didn’t feel like the result of a warm vintage. Instead, they were precise and lifted with dramatic floral perfumes, full of energy and framed by sweet tannins – in the end, balanced. For example, the 2011s, wines from another warm year, were the complete opposite on release. They were ripe and racy at first yet would tire the palate out with gobs of primary concentration and tannins that never felt quite ripe. When comparing the two years, it was easy to imagine drinking 2012s almost upon release and placing them in the cellar to enjoy a steady maturation, while the 2011s were what we would call “restaurant wines”.
Both vintages were warm and dry, yet 2012 had a steady and
balanced heat that allowed the vines to adapt slowly, while 2011 suffered a
shocking heat wave that shriveled the fruit. However, the drought conditions of
2012 did leave an impact, creating much smaller, dark berries and a reduced
quantity at harvest, between 15-30% lower than usual. Jan Hendrik Erbach of
Pian dell’Orino went as far as to explain, “the berries had the size of small
blueberries with a very thick skin and just a small drop of juice inside.”
Subsequent conversations with producers revealed that many estates felt that they had learned much dealing with warm and dry vintages over the previous decade or more, starting with 2000 and punctuated by 2011. As a result, many growers changed their canopy management (using the leaves to shade the fruit), reducing grape thinning (green harvesting) and employing grasses between the rows to conserve moisture. Filippo Chia of Castello Romitorio related, “two thousand twelve was the first vintage in which we seriously had to take climate change into consideration," which is now a daily conversation amongst Montalcino producers.
