Wine Advisor
Casanova di Neri, Brunello di Montalcino 2020
View analysis
Description
Casanova di Neri proudly produces the White Label Brunello since 1978. Their passion and love for the land and their own distinctive Sangiovese joined together to make a wine that stands out for elegance, finesse, high quality and long ageing potential.
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: James Suckling
Really delicious fruit with cherry and berry character, as well as a hint of cedar. Creamy tannins and fresh acidity. Grapes from the Cerretalto vineyard are used here this year. Drink or hold.
Reviewed by: Monica Larner
The Casanova di Neri 2020 Brunello di Montalcino (with the white label) represents a departure from the norm. Because the Cerretalto was not produced, fruit from that vineyard with its reddish mineral-rich soils was directed here instead. For that reason, this wine is especially spicy, lifted and intense. Dark cherry fruit is followed by rusty nail, black pepper and milled spice. The wine is fermented in steel tanks, sees 20 days of skin maceration and ages in botte and tonneaux for over three years. The oak is very well integrated. This is a wine of character (with 98,000 bottles made).
About the Producer
Casanova di Neri is founded by Giovanni Neri, a 48-year-old grain merchant from the town of Montevarchi in the Arno valley south of Florence. Passionate about wine, Neri had long dreamed of making a great Italian red, and although the long-established wine zone of Chianti Classico was just on his doorstep, it was remote Montalcino and its austere Sangiovese wines that fascinated him. Brunello di Montalcino had achieved DOC (controlled origin) status just four years previously, and there were still only around thirty producers in the whole area, compared to more than 250 today. One rural property on the market had caught Neri’s attention during his frequent forays to Montalcino: Podere Casanova, a working farm of around 200 hectares on the eastern side of town. Wine represented only a small part of the farm’s production at the time, and what was made was sold in bulk, but Neri recognized that thanks to its altitude, aspect and soil composition, the place had the potential to make great Brunellos. In May 1971, he bought Podere Casanova, changed its name to Casanova di Neri, and in consultation with some of Tuscany’s leading winemakers, immediately began work to restore the estate’s existing Sangiovese vines and plant new ones.
