Montalcino discovery guide

Brunello di Montalcino is made here and nowhere else, and you can drink it in the town that gives it its name, at the cellar door, for a fraction of what it costs anywhere else. The town is a 1361 fortress that never fell, with views over the Val d'Orcia, and twenty minutes south the Abbey of Sant'Antimo stands alone in a field.

The friction is that the wine is not cheap and the rules make it slow: Brunello cannot be sold until 1 January of the fifth year after the harvest, so every bottle carries four years of someone's cellar. And the town is small — 5,563 residents — with a lot of visitors in the middle of the day.

The smart way is to book two cellars rather than drift between wine shops, and to settle who is driving first. Then spend the afternoon at Sant'Antimo, which almost nobody schedules and which is the most beautiful thing in the comune.

What the year does

Montalcino is at 567 metres — high for this part of Tuscany — with the Val d'Orcia below it, and the vineyard calendar runs everything.

• January–February — cold and quiet, with fog filling the valley below and the town often above it in sun. Cellars receive by appointment; some restaurants close. The emptiest and cheapest time.
• March–April — the vines break and the valley is at its greenest. Growers have time before the season starts.
• May–June — the best weeks: warm, long light over the vineyards, everything open, and cellars unhurried enough for a real conversation.
• July–August — hot, hazy and busy at midday. There is little shade in the town and none on the slopes. The valley burns to gold.
• September–October — the vendemmia. The most interesting time to be in a working cellar and the hardest time to get an appointment; book weeks ahead and expect to be fitted around the fruit.
• November — ploughed earth, bare vines, low light, and the new vintage going into wood. Very quiet.
• December — cold, foggy, and the town out in its own squares at Christmas.

If you have one visit: late May or early June for the cellars and the light. September if you want to see the harvest and will book early.

The Fortezza first

Built in 1361 on a pentagonal plan by Sienese architects, and never taken by siege. Walk the walls for the view: the Val d'Orcia on one side, the vineyards that make Brunello on the others, and on a clear day a very long way in every direction. The fortress also holds an enoteca, which is the sensible place to taste across several producers before deciding whose cellar to visit.

Then the cellars, which need booking

There are more than two hundred Brunello producers in this comune — up from eleven in the 1960s — making some 330,000 cases a year. Most take visitors by appointment, a day or more ahead. Two cellars in a day is plenty; three is a wasted third.

Know what you are tasting. Brunello is 100% Sangiovese, at least two years in wood and four months in bottle, not sold until 1 January of the fifth year after the harvest, with the Riserva waiting another year and taking at least six months in bottle. Rosso di Montalcino is the same grape released from the September after harvest. Ask to compare them side by side — it is the single most instructive tasting available in Tuscany.

The town

An hour covers it: the fortress, the main street, the squares, the views off the edges. Montalcino is a fortress town rather than an art town, and its pleasure is the walking and the looking rather than a museum circuit.

Sant'Antimo, which is the thing people miss

Twenty minutes south at Castelnuovo dell'Abate, the Abbey of Sant'Antimo stands by itself among olives and vines — a Benedictine abbey whose own account traces its founding, as legend, to the ninth century and the time of Charlemagne. Restoration began in 1870.

It is a working religious house and publishes no timetable, hours or entry charge on its own site, so go without a schedule and take it as you find it. If an office is being sung while you are there, stay for it.

And the valley

The roads west and south drop into the Val d'Orcia, UNESCO-inscribed in 2004, and the loop toward San Quirico and Pienza is one of the great drives in Italy. Allow far longer than the distances suggest.

Montalcino is a town that was poor within living memory and is now rich, and it has handled that better than most.

The numbers make the point. In the 1960s there were eleven Brunello producers. There are now more than two hundred, producing some 330,000 cases a year of a wine that cannot legally be sold until 1 January of the fifth year after the harvest. That last rule is the key to the local temperament: every producer here carries four years of stock before a single bottle earns anything, which selects for patience, capital and a long view. People in Montalcino think in vintages.

The second thread is older and harder. This is a fortress town — the Fortezza of 1361, pentagonal, built by Sienese architects — and it never submitted to a siege. When Florence conquered Siena in 1555, Montalcino held out for almost four years as the last refuge of the Sienese republic before finally falling to the Florentines. A small town that was the final holdout of a defeated state has a particular self-image, and it is still legible here: Montalcino is proud in a way that is distinct from Tuscan prettiness.

The third is Sant'Antimo, and it is the counterweight to everything else. A Benedictine abbey standing alone in the fields at Castelnuovo dell'Abate, whose own history page traces its foundation — as legend — to the ninth century and Charlemagne, and whose restoration began in 1870. It publishes no opening hours and charges no admission, which in a comune this commercially successful is a quiet statement of its own.

So: a fortress that never fell, an abbey that keeps no timetable, and two hundred wine businesses operating on a five-year cycle. It is a more serious place than the label suggests.

Montalcino is a working wine commune of 5,563 people whose product is expensive and whose landscape is photographed constantly. The responsible choices are about where the money lands and how you treat the farmland.

• Buy at the cellar, not the wine shop. With more than two hundred producers in a comune of this size, buying directly puts the whole margin with the grower — and because Brunello must be held until the fifth year after harvest, these are businesses carrying years of unsold stock. The margin matters to them.
• Settle the driving before the first tasting. Brunello is a serious wine at serious strength, the roads out of Montalcino are narrow and unlit, and the drive to Sant'Antimo is a descent. Hire a driver, nominate a non-taster, or walk to a cellar in town.
• Taste the Rosso too. Rosso di Montalcino is the same grape, DOC since 1983, released from the September after harvest instead of the fifth year — a fraction of the price and what most people here actually drink. Asking for it is a compliment, not a downgrade.
• Photograph the cypresses from the road. The avenues and lone farmhouses are private property on working farms. There is no path into them and no need for one.
• Go to Sant'Antimo and be quiet in it. It is a working Benedictine abbey, not a monument. Its own site publishes no timetable and no entry charge, which tells you what kind of place it is: turn up, behave as you would in any church in use, and do not treat an office as a performance.
• Come outside the middle of the day if you can. A town of five and a half thousand on a hilltop absorbs a lot of visitors between eleven and four and very few either side.

What Montalcino actually costs

The town is cheap and the wine is not, and the reason the wine is expensive is written into the law rather than the marketing.

Why Brunello costs what it does

It must be 100% Sangiovese, aged at least two years in wooden barrels and at least four months in bottle, and it cannot be released until 1 January of the fifth year after the harvest. A Riserva waits a further year and takes at least six months in bottle. Yields are capped at 80 quintals per hectare.

So every bottle carries four to five years of barrels, cellar space and unearning capital from a producer who may be small — and there are more than two hundred of them making only about 330,000 cases between them. Obligatory patience plus limited volume is the entire explanation, and it is worth knowing because it tells you where the value is.

The cheaper way to drink the same grape

• Rosso di Montalcino — 100% Sangiovese from the same commune, DOC since 1983, released from 1 September following the harvest instead of the fifth year. A fraction of the price, drinkable now, and what a great many people here actually open on a weekday.
• Moscadello di Montalcino — the town's historic sweet white Muscat, DOC since 1984, and far less known than it should be.
• Sant'Antimo — a DOC since 1996 covering a wider range of varieties grown in the comune.

Buying

At the cellar, by appointment, is normally better value than the wine shops in town and far better than at home. The enoteca in the Fortezza is the right place to taste across producers first and decide where to go.

Everything else

• Eating is good value away from the main street, and this is pici and game country.
• Accommodation is moderate and cheaper than Pienza's in season.
• The Fortezza walls, the views and Sant'Antimo cost little or nothing — the abbey publishes no admission charge at all.
• A driver for a cellar day is the expense worth accepting.