| Producer | Uccelliera |
| Country | Italy |
| Region | Tuscany |
| Subregion | Montalcino |
| Varietal | Sangiovese |
| Vintage | 2019 |
| Sku | 04174 |
| Size | 750ml |
Founder/owner Andrea Cortonesi launched Uccelliera in 1986 by purchasing a few hectares of land that had been part of the famous Ciacci Piccolomini estate in the warm southern Castelnuovo dell'Abate part of the Montalcino vineyard. The purchase included a small farm house named “Uccelliera” - or “bird house” - for its site perched on the top of a hill.
Working by hand with his family and a small team, Cortonesi converted what had been a mixture of vines, olive trees, and other crops to a Brunello vineyard. All work in the vineyard is done entirely by hand, and the estate has practiced organic viticulture for years now. Recently, Cortonesi added two more hectares to the estate by purchase of a portion of Ciacci’s famous Pianrosso vineyard.
Winemaking at Uccelliera is traditional and done largely by instinct and feel. The vineyards have always delivered intensely ripe fruit, but in recent years, Cotonesi has started using cooler fermentations to maximize his wines’ elegance and precision. After fermentation, the young wine goes into an assortment of small French oak barrels and 32-hectoliter Slovenian oak casks. During their three years in wood, Cortonesi moves the wines from one type of container to another to increase or decrease wood influence and oxygen exposure as he sees fit. Throughout winemaking and at bottling, Uccelliera always uses as little SO2 as possible – with this level of color and tannin, that’s easy to do!
"The Uccelliera 2019 Brunello di Montalcino offers ripe fruit, a note of cooked blackberry and pomegranate juice. Along with oak spice and dried bay leaf, there is a spot of creaminess on the mid-palate that recalls cheese rind or aged chèvre with a crust of black pepper and thyme. That note blows off, however, and the wine returns to dried cherry with a medicinal or herbal twist. There's a lot going on. The wine needs more time in bottle to address the fine, chalky tannins. It is elegant now but poised to improve."
"Brooding yet intense, the 2019 Brunello di Montalcino bursts from the glass with a wave of autumnal spices, crushed cherries, cedar shavings and steeped plums lifted by pine hints. This is deeply textural, elegant and refined, with a dense wave of ripe wild berry fruits, all guided by vibrant acidity, offset by oranges and balsam herbs. It finishes grippy and extended with a black hole of tension and a sweet and sour sensation that lingers on and on as crunchy tannins resonate throughout. The 2019 is youthfully backward today, yet there's a balance that can't be denied, especially as I watched it open up over twenty-four hours. This is a total pleasure to taste. Bury the 2019 deep in the cellar."
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