Castello Giulio 2020 | Brunello di Montalcino

The estate is Villa Santa Restituta, a fourteenth-century villa some ten kilometres south of Montalcino which the Castelli Martinozzi family has owned for centuries. The chapel next to the manor house bears witness to it: ancestors from several generations are buried there. The oldest recognition they keep is a merit medal awarded to Cesare Martinozzi in 1892 at a Siena wine competition.

The property covers 160 hectares, of which only twelve are vineyard —and sixteen olive grove— between 400 and 480 metres. The vineyard was once far larger: parcels that today belong to Soldera and to the neighbouring Caprilli and Fattoi were part of Villa Santa Restituta. The family kept the ones surrounding the villa.

The estate is run today by Federico Nannetti, who took over from his grandfather Cesare Castelli. The Brunello is bottled under the name Castello Giulio: Sangiovese from south and southwest-facing slopes on poor, stony soils of silicates and limestone, with vines twenty to thirty years old, hand-picked in the first ten days of October and aged in large botti, without putting oak ahead of fruit.