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This family-owned-and-operated estate sits in the northern end of Montalcino, which gives the vineyards a climate that's cooled by altitude and warmed by Mediterranean breezes. The grapes, therefore, ripen impressively but retain their happy acidity. Great balance and structure, as well as fantastic aromatics, mark Canalicchio di Sopra's Brunellos, of which the estate bottles under 3,000 cases of its normale production and a mere 420 to 500 of its Riserva.
- Country: Italy
- Region: Toscana
- Subregion: Brunello di Montalcino
Founded in the sixties by Primo Pacenti, Canalicchio di Sopra remains family-owned. Its establishment represented a substantive risk, as Pacenti, a peasant farmer up until the abolition of the sharecropping system, possessed little in the way of security. The Brunellos of the estate largely reflect the wine’s historical paradigm, a character derived, in part, through 36 months of cask aging, and 1 year in bottle.
Although Brunellos are generally regarded as more pronounced in character than the wines of Chianti, such a generic and broad description is more convenient than it is accurate. Distinctions in climate and soil between the northern and southern parts of the Montalcino zone account for important differences. The northern zone, the area relative to Canalicchio, evidences a cooler climate than that of its southern counterpart; this northern terrain receives limited exposure to both the Mediterranean influence of Montalcino and the cooling breezes that the latter’s high altitude affords, resulting in wines that display impressive ripeness and structure.
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