Brunello di Montalcino, youngest of Italy’s prestigious red wines, having been invented as a wine in its own right by Ferruccio biondi-santi, the first to bottle it and give it a distinctive name, in 1865. Conventional descriptions of the birth of the wine stress Biondi-Santi’s successful isolation of a superior clone of sangiovese, the Sangiovese Grosso or brunello. an investigation begun by his father Clemente Santi. The 1865 vintage of a wine Clemente had labelled ‘brunello’ had been a prize-winning entry in the agricultural fair of Montepulciano in 1869, indicating that genetically superior material was available in the zone at an earlier date. (Some records show the wines of Montalcino referred to as Brunello as early as the 14th century; see tuscany, history.) Only four vintages—1888, 1891, 1925, 1945—were declared in the first 57 years of production, contributing an aura of rarity to the wine that translated into high prices and, in Italy at least, incomparable prestige. The Biondi-Santi were the only commercial producers until after the Second World War and a government report of 1932 named Brunello as an exclusive product of the family and estimated its total annual production at just 200 hl/5,280 gal.
