Emilia Nardi of Tenuto Silvio Nardi

The Skinny on 2003 Brunello

It’s not a great vintage, but some very good wines
were made nonetheless.

Tom Maresca

If ever a vintage justified the whole profession of wine writing, 2003 Brunello is it. In glorious Brunello years like 1999, 2001, and the not-yet-released 2004, the average wine consumer hardly needs advice: it’s almost as hard to choose a bad wine in those years as it was for the producers to make one (such is the power of human ingenuity, however, that a few mavericks did succeed). But the 2003 growing season was anything but glorious: it presented challenges at every step of the way, and the resulting wines reflect substantial differences in vineyard care and winemaking skill — not in a profusion of positives, as in 1999 or 2001, but in a very mixed bag of qualities that demonstrate just how hard it is to make a great wine in extreme heat. A long, very hot growing season such as 2003 afforded tends to homogenize a region’s wines. Differences of terroir and microclimate are pretty much obliterated by the prominence of very ripe fruit (often coupled with unripe tannins) and high alcohol (often coupled with low acidity). Consumers need all the information they can lay their hands on to choose among 2003 Brunellos, especially if they are looking for wines for long cellaring.

The Consorzio del Vino Brunello di Montalcino — the organization representing more than 98 percent of the grape growers and wine producers of Montalcino — every year offers its own evaluation of that year’s vintage, signaling its view of the newly made wine’s potential quality on the basis of one to five stars. One star indicates, in the Consorzio’s discreet phrase, “an insufficient wine,” while five stars call attention to an annata eccezionale, an outstanding vintage. The 2003 was officially awarded four stars — “an excellent vintage” — the same rating that was given to 1999 and 2001.

This is more than a little strange, since the 2003 growing season was marked by torrid heat, exceptional even for the Brunello area, which is the southernmost and always the warmest of Tuscany’s great Sangiovese growing zones. Granted that there had been generous rainfall the preceding winter, so for most of the summer the vines — the oldest and deepest-rooted of them anyway — could feed. Nevertheless, the heat was fierce, and so accelerated the growth cycle that the 2003 harvest occurred almost three weeks earlier than usual.

Count Francesco Marone Cinzano, owner of the historic Col d’Orcia estate and new President of the Consorzio, counts all that as an advantage. “The weather conditions were ideal for Sangiovese,” he says. “There was good rainfall during the winter to allow enough water accumulation in the soil, and consistent sunny weather from April through the end of August for the development of the grapes, which were very concentrated, thanks to the intense heat. This is a vintage that will age well and for a long time.”

I have great respect for Count Marone and his estate, as I do for the Brunello Consorzio and the vast majority of its members, and I hope they are all right and I am wrong — but I have to disagree. I tasted some 50-odd examples of 2003 Brunello in New York early in February, and I found them very uneven: a few outstanding wines, a few scarcely drinkable ones, and most of those in the middle showing one or more of the typical characteristics of a very hot vintage — high alcohol, raisiny fruit, much-too-much concentration and/or extraction. Some producers seem to have tried to sweeten the wine with new oak, which sometimes worked and sometimes overwhelmed the Sangiovese flavors that ought to be the heart of Brunello. Because of the heat of the vintage, fruit is abundant in the wines, even where it verges on over-ripeness, and most of it is fairly soft on the palate. Most of the wines therefore are already drinkable, but I wouldn’t expect them to last long. Their high alcohol and seemingly low acidity just don’t integrate that well with the very ripe character of the fruit, leading me to suspect that they will dry out fairly quickly. I think these are wines to drink over the next five years — what the wine trade refers to as good restaurant wines, because they don’t require — or reward — cellaring.

Just for the record: I went back and checked my notes, and for my palate (a very traditional one where Brunello is concerned), at these same stages of development, the 1999 and 2001 Brunello vintages showed far more elegance and integration and much more typical Sangiovese character. If 2003 deserves four stars, then 1999 and 2001 should rate five, or maybe an off-the-scale six.

Tasting Notes: Brunello 2003

Tasting notes for so many wines, from the same warm vintage and made entirely from the same single grape variety, are bound to be very repetitious, so take it as read here that all these wines showed ripe fruit in the cherry to sour cherry to over-ripe cherry range, with less evident acidity and more abundant (usually soft) tannins than is normal for Sangiovese-based wines. The more significant differences — these were frequently stylistic rather than substantial — from wine to wine are noted below. Where balance and structure showed well, I’d judge the wine has a chance of aging gracefully.

Five Star Wines

• Ciacci Piccolomini d’Aragona, Pianrosso: excellent — the basic ’03 character glorified, with an intriguing blend of espresso, chocolate, and Sangiovese-cherry flavors.
• Costanti: fresh, juicy, and structured — one of the best wines of the vintage.

Four Star Wines

• Banfi: good fruit; all the right flavors, with a slightly astringent finish.
• Barbi: an excellent middle-weight, with an enjoyable juicy finish.
• Capanna: very composed; well-structured and well-integrated, with classic Sangiovese character.
• Castelgiocondo: fresh and very elegant, especially for ’03.
• Castello di Romitorio: good, juicy fruit, with a pleasing, astringent finish.
• Ciacci Piccolomini d’Aragona: elegant and round, with good Sangiovese flavors and a nice espresso finish.
• Donatella Cinelli Colombini, Prime Donne: a more refined and elegant version of her basic Brunello.
• Fanti: big Sangiovese aroma; very fresh on the palate, with adequate structure, but not for long cellaring.
• Fuligni: a big wine, in the characteristic style of this excellent maker — lots of tannin, lots of fruit, lots of acid. This might be a wine to cellar.
• Il Marroneto, Madonna delle Grazie: elegant, with tobacco and tar flavors mixed in with sour cherry; long finishing.
• Lisini: fresh tasting, with some depth; balanced and accessible.
• Palazzo: nice tobacco-y nose; fine body and structure.
• Uccelliera: a very pretty wine, with excellent fruit — easy drinking, but still structured.

Three Star Wines

• Argiano: juicy and long-finishing.
• Belpoggio: soft and fat, with a tannic finish.
• Camigliano: for current drinking.
• Castello Tricerchi: good medium-weight Brunello, drinkable now.
• Col d’Orcia: a good effort — medium-weight and polished.
• Col di Sole: nice cherry nose; a little closed but well-structured; needs a year yet.
• Donatella Cinelli Colombini: a touch too ripe, but sapid and accessible.
• Gianni Brunelli: very good example of the vintage’s best traits.
• Il Poggione: nice fruit, long finish.
• La Fortuna: very characteristic of the vintage, with signs of good structure.
• La Lecciaia: fresh fruit flavors with a good, juicy finish.
• Le Chiuse: decent fruit and some structure; for current drinking.
• Pertimali: quite classic Brunello flavors on a slightly diminished scale.
• Poggio Antico: closed and hard to read; normally, this wine shows very well indeed, but this may not be its vintage.
• San Filippo: good Sangiovese flavors, nice tobacco finish.
• Sancarlo: very similar in taste and style to the preceding wine.
• Sassodisole: a good representative of the vintage.
• Tenementi Angelini Val di Suga: easy drinking and characteristic of the vintage.
• Tenuta Caparzo: good tobacco and dark cherry flavors.
• Tenuta di Sesta: good fruit flavors with marked tobacco undertones.
• Tenuta Greppone Mazzi: a middle-weight, middle-of-the-road wine that avoids the vintage’s excesses.
• Tenuta Friggiale, Donna Olga: a bit closed still, but fresh and drinkable.
• Tenute Silvio Nardi: a stylish wine, heavily extracted but nonetheless limber.
• Tenute Silvio Nardi, Manichiara: a very good example of the modern style in Brunello; wood-sweet.

The striking thing about Rodney Strong is how, over the years . . . the wines have retained both their quality and their price.