Producer: Il Grappolo
Region: Tuscany
Winemaker: Carlo Travagli
Winemaking: Fermentation in concrete vats for three weeks. Aged in 3000L French and Slavonian oak cask for 30 months, giving the wine more softness and roundness. Followed by 12 months additional aging in the bottle.
Appellation: Brunello di Montalcino DOCG
Grape Variety: 100% Sangiovese
Production: 300 cases
Summary
Brunello: The very name given this wine summons images of mountain top villages, hilly vineyards and the unique topography of the Italian countryside as it eases down to the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Here, in and around the picturesque Montalcino, the Sangiovese grape earns its own special moniker – Brunello – that typifes a wine worthy of aging and that, due to the hot dry weather, evolves to a lofty place above “standard” Sangiovese. Indeed, Brunello must be 100% Sangiovese from the very vineyards that reach back into the 14th Century. Ultimately, in 1980, this stellar expression of Sangiovese earned the region its DOCG and forever seated Brunello as one of Italy’s most popular and most expensive wines.
Ruby-colored Sassocheto is an iconic Brunello; refined, complex, and full-bodied. Rich aromas of fruits and spices give way to a full bodied wine with lively fruit, harmonious tannins and a lengthy finish of leather and minerality.
Food Pairing
Braised meat dishes and aged cheeses. Grilled, dry-aged beef, osso bucco, braised lamb shank in pan sauce.
Varietal Notes
Sangiovese is a red Italian wine grape variety whose name derives from the Latin sanguis Jovis, “the blood of Jove”. Young Sangiovese has fresh, fruity flavors of strawberry and a little spiciness, but it readily takes on oaky, even tarry, flavors when aged in barrels. Sangiovese appears to have originated in Tuscany, where it was well known by the 16th century. Sangiovese Grosso, also known as Brunello, is a century-old clone of the historic Sangiovese grape cultivated specifically for responsiveness to aging.