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Top 5 Brunello at the LCBO
Szabo’s VINTAGES Preview – Aug 5th
Terraced Vineyards of the Wachau, Austria, and Wachau Buyer’s Guide, Plus Smart Buys at VINTAGES By John Szabo, MS Austria’s Wachau region offers some of Europe’s most spectacular, UNESCO-protected vineyard scenery, not to mention some of the greatest riesling and grüner veltliner on earth. Here, grapevines cling to narrow terraces above the Danube, carved from […]
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The Wachau: Preserving Centuries-Old Terraces and Their Brilliant Wines
Photos and text by John Szabo, MS “It hasn’t always been this way.” And it may not stay this way, either”, Emmerich Knoll answers gravely, with an emphatic pause between sentences. We’re driving along the north bank of the Danube River a couple of hours west of Vienna. Above us, vines cling to breathtakingly steep […]
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The Winery of the Year – 2017 Nationals
Winery of the Year – Redstone Winery By David Lawrason It will no doubt come as a surprise to many across the country that a relatively new Ontario winery making only 15,000 cases is Canada’s Winery of the Year in 2017. It is not a surprise to winemaker Rene Van Ede, nor to anyone who […]
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National Wine Awards of Canada
Discover Canada's best wines! In 2016, 22 judges tasted 1,535 wines from 230 wineries across the country to identify Canada's top wines.
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World Wine Awards of Canada
Seventeen judges tasted 1,000 wines in 21 categories in 2015 to find the world's best wines sold in Canada under $50.
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Brunello di Montalcino is one of the most prestigious appellations in Italy, born in the 19th Century in its present form thanks to the efforts of the Biondi-Santi family, who defined its rules and have largely guided it to the present day. The wines are made from 100% Sangiovese grape, in particular from a clone called Sangiovese Grosso, or also as Brunello - hence the appellation's name. Traditionally, the wine goes through an extended maceration period where color, tannins and flavour are extracted from the skins. Following fermentation the wine is then aged in oak. Traditionally, the wines are aged 3 years or more in "botti" - large Slovenian oak casks that impart little oak flavour and generally produce more austere wines. Some winemakers will use small French barrels which impart a more pronounced vanilla oak flavour and add a certain fruitiness to the wine. Whatever the approach, wines must be aged for for years (with a minimum of two years in barrel) before being released, according to appellation rules.
