Gaja
Pieve Santa Restituta Rennina
Brunello di Montalcino
2016

The producer

One of the great entrepreneurs of modern Italian wine, Angelo Gaja’s story begins in Barbaresco where he almost single-handedly raised the Barbaresco name to world fame.

In the 1990s, he turned his gaze on Tuscany, acquiring the Pieve Santa Restituta estate in Brunello di Montalcino in 1994. Named after the parish church (pieve) situated in the middle of the estate, its history dates back to 400AD.

The vineyards are located at a 350 metre altitude and are neighbours to Soldera’s Casse Basse estate. Three wines are produced on the estate, of which we list the single vineyards ‘Rennina’ and ‘Sugarille’. ‘Rennina’ is known as the more structured and masculine with a riper character, whereas ‘Sugarille’ is more delicate with softer tannins and floral complexity.

The wine

Rennina is one of Pieve Santa Restituta’s single cru wines, although not technically speaking a single vineyard wine but derived from three small vineyard plots to the north of the Sugarille vineyard. Rennina is known as the more structured and brooding of Gaja’s Brunellos, with a riper character, spice, black dense cherry fruit, and overall more backward and austere, taking its time to open up and be ready to enjoy.

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.