2019 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva

Francesco Ripaccioli can always be relied on for an honest assessment of vintages. There’s no need to mince words regarding 2020. It was one of the warmest vintages Montalcino has ever encountered, including a period in mid-summer when the vines shut down due to the heat. However, there were several well-timed rain events in the region, and producers could spend as much time in the vineyards as they liked because this was the year of COVID-19 lockdown. Properly shading the fruit to avoid sunburn and picking the absolute best harvest time from location to location was essential. Ultimately, Canalicchio di Sopra succeeded in producing a set of gorgeous wines. The higher-elevation sites and the marl, clay and limestone soils of Montosoli yielded the best results. Ripaccioli chose not to make a Riserva in 2020, so the additional fruit from Vecchia Mercatale aided the Brunello di Montalcino, typically a blend of the La Casaccia and Montosoli vineyards. The 2020s possess a more immediate quality that aligns with the season but are also gorgeously balanced, placing them amongst the best wines of the vintage. I also tasted each vintage of La Casaccia, back to its first release in 2015. I am amazed by the potential for these wines to mature gracefully despite their power. Readers will find that reflected in many of the notes in this report. Finally, there’s the 2019 Riserva, produced entirely from the Vecchia Mercatale vineyard. It’s as glorious as expected, dark yet radiant and well muscled. Canalicchio di Sopra bottles this wine with the Brunello and Cru wines yet releases it a year early, which helps it to stand out amongst its peers.

Francesco Ripaccioli and his family at Canalicchio di Sopra have taken things to a new level with this recent set of new releases. From top to bottom, the 2019s display a balance of elegance, texture and transparency to terroir that keeps me coming back to the glass again and again. After years of tasting countless wines, I can confidently say that the 2019 Vigna La Casaccia is a perfect wine. La Casaccia is located just outside the winery and is primarily made up of clay soils with a good amount of mineral elements, primarily calcium, alternating with pebbles at about 300 meters of elevation. This is one of the first crus that Francesco Ripaccioli chose to single out years ago. As for the 2019 Montosoli, it’s another tremendous achievement. The Montosoli was one of the top wines of the 2018 vintage, and now, again in 2019, it’s at the very top of my list. However, the house Brunello remains unaffected by the fruit loss from these two sites. The Brunello di Montalcino of Canalicchio di Sopra is always a gorgeous and transparent representation of northern Montalcino terroir and a wine that stands on its own, shoulder to shoulder with the best of the region. On my most recent visit, Francesco Ripaccioli opened up his selection of 2016s, which are maturing beautifully. He also gave me a sneak preview of the 2019 Riserva, bottled entirely from the Vigna Vecchia Mercantale vineyard. At Canalicchio di Sopra, the Riserva has the same élevage as the Brunello, with 36 months in 25-hectoliter Slavonian oak barrels, but is released later and has a different blend of vineyards depending on the vintage.