Casanova di Neri
Brunello di Montalcino DOCG
Brunello di Montalcino
2010

The producer

Grain-merchant, Giovanni Neri, founded Casanova di Neri in 1971 at the 200 ha Podere Casanova on the eastern side of the region. The first Brunello di Montalcino was produced in 1978. In 1991, son Giacomo takes over the running of the winery. In 1993, the first harvest of Sangiovese fruit from the Le Cetine vineyard in southern Montalcino is harvested – and in 1998 the 1993 single vineyard Brunello ‘Tenuta Nuova’ (produced from fruit from Le Cetine vineyard) is released to rave reviews.

Years later, in 2006, Wine Spectator awards ‘Tenuta Nuova’ its “Wine of the Year” award. Casanova di Neri is widely known as a more international or modern style of Brunello di Montalcino, characterised by concentrated luscious dark fruit, fine tannins and succulent velvety oak complexity. We will be offering three of Casanova di Neri’s outstanding wines.

The wine

Produced since 1978, Casanova di Neri’s Brunello is often called ‘the white label’ in order to avoid confusion with the other wines. ‘The white label’ is derived from 20- to 50-year-old vines growing at 300-480 metres altitude in the north and northeast of Montalcino. Fermentation and maceration take place in conical steel vats for 25 days and is followed by 42 months of ageing in oak barrels, finally followed by 6 months ageing in bottles. Taut red fruit concentration with soft and silky tannins, energetic freshness, and a long and elegant finish characterizes this wildly popular wine.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.