page_title: Brunello di Montalcino
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Brunello di Montalcino / History
caption_attribution_description: Afrikaans: Die Sangiovese-kultivar in 'n wingerd van Montalcino, Italië. Deutsch: Sangiovese-Weinrebe an einem Weinstock in Montalcino, Italien English: Sangiovese grapes in a vineyard of Montalcino, Italy Русский: Санджовезе из региона Монтальчино, Италия
context_page_description: Brunello di Montalcino is a red DOCG Italian wine produced in the vineyards surrounding the town of Montalcino, in the province of Siena, located about 80 km south of Florence in the Tuscany wine region. Brunello, a diminutive of Bruno, is the name that was given locally to what was believed to be an individual grape variety grown in Montalcino. In 1879 the Province of Siena's Amphelographic Commission determined, after a few years of controlled experiments, that Sangiovese and Brunello were the same grape variety, and that the former should be its designated name. In Montalcino the name Brunello evolved into the designation of the wine produced with 100% Sangiovese.
  In 1980, Brunello di Montalcino was among the four wines awarded the first Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita designation. Today it is one of Italy's best-known and most expensive wines.
context_section_description: One of the first records of "Brunello" was a red wine that was made in the Montalcino area in the early 14th century. In 1831, marchese Cosimo Ridolfi (who was later appointed Prime Minister of Tuscany by the Grand Duke Leopold II) praised the merits of the red wines of Montalcino above all others in Tuscany. In 1865, an agricultural fair in Montalcino noted that the prize winning wine of the event was a "select red wine" known as a Brunello. In the mid-19th century, a local farmer named Clemente Santi isolated certain plantings of Sangiovese vines in order to produce a 100% varietal wine that could be aged for a considerable period of time. In 1888, his grandson Ferruccio Biondi-Santi—a veteran soldier who fought under Giuseppe Garibaldi during the Risorgimento—released the first "modern version" of Brunello di Montalcino that was aged for over a decade in large wood barrels.
  By the end of World War II, Brunello di Montalcino had developed a reputation as one of Italy's rarest wines. The only commercial producer recorded in government documents was the Biondi-Santi firm, which had declared only four vintages up to that point—1888, 1891, 1925, and 1945. The high price and prestige of these wines soon encouraged other producers to emulate Biondi-Santi's success. By the 1960s there were 11 producers making Brunello, and in 1968 the region was granted Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC) status. By 1970 the number of producers had more than doubled to 25, and by 1980 there were 53 producers. In 1980, the Montalcino region was the first Italian wine region to be awarded Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG) designation. By the turn of the 21st century, there were nearly 200 producers of Brunello di Montalcino, mostly small farmers and family estates, together producing nearly 330,000 cases a year.
  In 2008, Italian authorities confiscated four producers' 2003 Brunello on charges that the producers had committed fraud by including foreign varietals such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot in the wine that they then fraudulently labeled as Brunello di Montalcino, which by law may only contain Sangiovese grapes. Laboratory tests later confirmed that the confiscated wines were in fact Brunello except for a small portion that remained inconclusive.
caption: Sangiovese grapes in Montalcino.
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