8 Masters of Wine to evaluate the 2020 vintage • Food and Wine Italy

Goodbye to the stars for the grape harvest quanto a the land of Brunello. The self-defeating practice of evaluating every year the harvest of the current vintage which, as it could not always be – by force of circumstances and decency – 5 stars, ended up inducing buyers to neglect only 4 celebrità vintages, which perhaps over distance they were excellent quanto a the glass.

The Brunello nel corso di Montalcino Consortium has therefore launched, starting this year, a new evaluation model. The in-depth analysis, presented the occasion of the Benarrivato Brunello Previews, will anzi che no longer be dedicated to the harvest just concluded, but to the vintage that comes the market quanto a January – which this year is 2020. For the first time a Consortium launches a project quanto a several phases (meteorological, analytical, sensorial) which culminates with an international panel of eight Masters of Wine (MW).

«After having abandoned the judgment expressed by the number of stars quanto a 2021, with the anticipation of Benarrivato Brunello quanto a November, it was necessary to define a new paradigm of analysis of the vintage based objective, authoritative and non-self-referential – underlines the president of the Consortium Fabrizio Bindocci –. For the first time, a protection consortium entrusts the reading of its flagship wine to an external team of experts, which may change at each edition.” An innovation that will allow Montalcino producers to enter the market accompanied by a “solid and contemporary evaluation model, which takes into account climate change, current style and Brunello consumption trends”, adds Bindocci.

Gorelli and Lonardi captains of the research group

The objective is to highlight the stylistic and distinctive personality of Brunello. The working group of the new project – led by the board of directors of the consortium and made up of expert climatologists, territorial analysis specialists and international tasters – has studied an innovative evaluation method that takes into account the highly heterogeneous factors that characterize the denomination. The system combines objective linked to the climatic trends of the different vintages, the consequences that the seasons have vegetative behavior and production for the Sangiovese variety but ultimately also the subjective sensations of a representative sample of tasters (with an international palate) to perceive and enhance the peculiarities of the different vintages. For this project, the Consortium relied the Italian MWs Gabriele Gorelli and Andrea Lonardi, but also Copernico, a leading Chinese company quanto a the field of high tech farming. Because the process of in-depth analysis and research, quanto a addition to transmitting indications for the market, will offer technical information to winemakers, oenologists and wine professionals, thanks to the development of an interactive map that will become a true archive of knowledge for the territory.

«This model, built and developed for Montalcino, represents a tool to better trace quanto a a contemporary way the quality and stylistic renewal of the denomination – comment Gorelli and Lonardi –, as well as the challenges and effects generated by climate change. A method that also allows the territory and companies to communicate quanto a an identifying way.” The commission’s “verdict” will be made official November 16, the day which the commemorative tile of the 33rd edition of Benarrivato Brunello, signed this year by the director and writer Ferzan Ozpetek, will also be presented.