Podere Scopetone Brunello di Montalcino 2016

Podere Scopetone is the real thing when it comes to small: two and a half hectares on the hilltop cru of Scarnacuoia just north of Montalcino's walls, looking across to the famed Montosoli hill from 400 to 500 meters. Federigo Abbarchi and Angela Corioni planted the site in 1978 and began bottling in 1982 with counsel from Giulio Gambelli, the era's great Sangiovese palate, holding a defiantly traditional line while the appellation chased barriques. In 2009 neighbors Loredana Tanganelli and Antonio Brandi leased the vines and cellar on the understanding that Scopetone would live on, and they have kept faith: organic farming, certified in 2019, and the same elegant, classical winemaking. The Brunello amounts to a few hundred cases a year. In the outstanding 2016 vintage, traditionalist Montalcino at its most human scale.