Le Ragnaie - Where Brunello and Burgundy Meet

Not long ago, there was a California wine organization called In Pursuit of Balance. IPOB was very “of the moment” as the Parker pendulum swung back to less ripe wines and it housed a new (disturbingly Francophilic) cadre of “in” producers and sommeliers moving toward lighter wines and edging toward natural. They also mistakenly applied blunt tools like alcohol percentage as a proxy for balance, entrenched the bad and cliquish behavior of several leading writers, and the general aroma of progressive elites. Many took issue with this. Adam Lee of Siduri got head-nodding approval for his mislabeled and clearly unbalanced high-alcohol wines, and many critics found the movement’s estimable wines to be suspiciously unbalanced with green flavors and unripe stems. To their credit, IPOB was a historical necessity, and it properly capitalized on the moment. Their success became mainstream, but they saw it, threw a party, and were vindicated by history. Barolo, Brunello and Taurasi were not invited.

My waking daydream at that time was to show up with a bottle of Le Ragnaie Brunello. Perhaps the 2011 which, as a product of the vintage, just nudged 15% ABV, and like Adam Lee did, just change the ABV and watch them swoon. Crystalline in purity, full of nervous energy that seemed impossible after years in botti, layered with peaks and valleys that go on, a touch feral and disciplined at the same time. This is a different type of balance all together, and decidedly not Californian.

Brunello is a hard region to characterize. The vineyard altitudes vary widely, the clones and

climatic patterns are wide-ranging, and even thinking “Brunello wines are bigger than Chianti” falls apart quickly, especially through the lens of Le Ragnaie. The total Brunello area is only about 60,000 acres in total size, about six-by-six miles with 1/10^th of that area planted to Sangiovese. This size is roughly the same as the Napa Valley floor running from Napa to Calistoga but shaped as a square. Brunello’s altitude varies from 2,100’ down to 400 feet, and despite its inland location, it lies 60 miles from the Apennines and 25 miles from the ocean. It is predictably cooler in the north and can vary roughly from high zone 2/low zone 3 at altitude to a surprisingly warm zone 4 in the southwest on the Winkler scale. Given that it is mountainous former seabed that refilled repeatedly, the soils are incredibly diverse, the many microclimates are no surprise, volcanics are nearby, and add in diversity in slope and orientation. While eight usefully distinct subzones are unofficially recognized, the discussion to make something official has not gained traction. In some ways, the zones can seem more obscure than the much larger Chianti Classico region.

While this range under the Brunello umbrella might seem challenging, it can also be an asset.  Le Ragnaie’s primary home vineyard site is located two miles south of Montalcino at the highest elevation in the zone, but owner and winemaker Riccardo has leveraged Brunello’s diversity with several others supplementary locations for a grand total of around 70 acres. All are farmed similarly and the house winemaking style is consistent throughout, and while a portion of these other sites goes into their primary Brunello di Montalcino bottling, it also allows a selection of single-vineyard bottlings, similar to a modern Barolo lineup. Casanovina Montosoli is nearby to the north, Petroso is only one hectare nearby in the oldest area, and Fornace is at 1,300’ altitude with more silt and rock for an open-knit style.

Several things stood out immediately as we went through different blocks in the home vineyard. Lower vineyard blocks had recently changed to cane pruning rather than the more modern cordon and spur. Sangiovese does indeed do quite well with cordon and spur pruning, more so than many Italian grapes. It is simpler to prune once it is established, and cordon training restrains Sangiovese’s tendency to overproduce by encouraging smaller berry size. However, just as we are experiencing in California, the incidence of trunk disease is spreading exponentially in Montalcino as well, and cane pruning adds a layer of protection to the vine by renewing structural wood every year when practiced carefully, plus older vines naturally choke back crop production, and their permanent cover crops also help in theory. Le Ragnaie has been certified organic for quite some time, and they implemented Biodynamic for a period and while they found some aspects beneficial, ultimately they let that certification go while integrating some of the insights. There is a strong sense of melding the practical and the aspirational here, and an understanding that things take time.

Up above came a surprise though with vines pruned to albarello with a simple vertical wires to

provide some canopy structure. Not much different than what you see in Southern Italy, a nice and clean three-spur vine, planted not too close and not too far apart. They were starting to crimp the cover crop that day, clearly on the same page with what many of us are thinking about in California too. Riccardo was wise enough to point out that while permanent cover crops are the ideal, after many generations there is a natural selection that starts to occur at the cost of biodiversity and reseeding them periodically fights the tendency toward monoculture. Also, unlike in California, they didn’t feel much need to rotate mildew sprays, something we are obsessed with in some areas, just employing sulfur and a cautious bit of Bordeaux mix (copper) if needed for extreme pressure.

Having recently left Chianti Classico where I was surprised to see a lot of vine hedging in use, I was interested to hear Riccardo’s dislike of it, something I share for tannic reds. Sangiovese rides a razor’s edge of tannin, acid, and alcohol, and the hormonal shift that cutting shoot tips and forcing laterals causes an effect almost like working against oneself in phenolic development and promoting a longer vegetative cycle when we really want to get the vine into veraison as quickly as possible. If you have 100 acres of Pinot Gris, it isn’t a problem and the management costs and shading pencils out, and old vine Pinot Noir in Burgundy can be more forgiving since those vines may need the growth stimulation and tannin is much lower, but Sangiovese? He also was puzzled as to why curling canes tips around the wire was suddenly in vogue – an old practice for many. The canopies looked great after a wet spring, not undermanaged but also not forced into artificial consistency of overmanagement. Sangiovese has aggressive canes and letting them express that energy rather than fighting it seemed the order of the day.

In the winery things move in a relatively traditional but very careful manner, and Riccardo has matured from the initial enthusiasm for barrique and yeast to becoming a self-aware traditionalist with narrow and deep wisdom. But, before we dive in, I want to point out that for Brunello wines aged three years or more in oak, the finished total sulfur levels at Le Ragnaie are absurdly low, half of what one would expect for a beautiful, perfectly clean wine without a hint of nattiness or microbial fuzziness – a testament to intense attention to detail. Pied de cuve is employed rather than cultured yeast, and fermentations are kept at a moderate temperature in the old-school Italian concrete. Depending on the vintage Le Raigne will push extended macerations pretty far for Sangiovese, often going 30-45 days on skins and possibly up to 90 if the vintage allows it before pressing to botti for aging. And similar to other Italian wineries I spoke with on this trip, they weren’t particularly worried about the speed of malolactic conversion or the use of lees through stirring or autolytic breakdown for body. There was a general “rack it if it needs it” one-or-twice policy, but don’t force anything. Earlier in the week a Chianti Classico winemaker told me he was trying to make the narrowest, leanest-bodied wine possible – words we rarely hear in California. These sentiments make perfect sense for a winery focusing on purity though. Thinking of similar DOCG wines like Barolo and Sagrantino, these are very elongated time frames and understanding the vintage and constant tasting must be the guide with such a long developmental arc, especially with extended macerations that can take a while to reveal themselves.

Things become pretty straight-forward as aging progresses and there really weren’t any tricks or technological strategies at play. The work is front-loaded in the vineyard, and then it was clear that the incoming fruit was sorted meticulously after full destemming. As long as the fermentation runs on schedule, and after the cut-off point for extended maceration has been reached, then for the most part, we wait. Of particular note though is the consistency of the wine, from tasting out of botti to the current bottles. If we think of 2020 as warm but wet, ’21 as balanced and ’22 as fruit-forward and richer (the 2022 Rosso di Montalcino wines may be the exceptional buy of note here) the continuity through all of the wines is a testament to farming practices, vineyard work and vine resilience, then just careful elevage and bottling.

While it certainly is fun (for the taster at least) to provide detailed notes that might focus on the single-vineyard bottlings as an ultimate personality crescendo, many of us will never see these single-vineyard bottlings that are only about 3,000 bottles each, and I really want to promote the “entry level” as an introduction. Le Ragnaie’s Rosso di Montalcino from the estate vineyard (black label) is simply the best Rosso you can get in this elegant style in my opinion. All the nuance, the persistence, the rose-and-spice and clarity are there in a younger, rambunctious form with 2 years of aging and all of the attention to detail. Their white label Rosso di Montalcino (their largest production including other vineyards) delivers in a similar style and will be the easiest to find, but it also spends two years in botti. Really the decision as to what goes to Rosso and what goes to Brunello seems a matter of intuitive triage rather than clear-cut quality or simply vine age.

Le Ragnaie’s basic Brunello bottling (white label) combines all the vineyards and is a model of what elegant Brunello can be with all of the cherries, herbs, a touch of citrus, floral tones, spicy vitality and flexibility to drink young if you like fine Sangiovese tannin and freshness, or aged for meditazione. “Vigna Vecchia” (old vines) adds more of the sauvage or gamey character that leans into bay leaf and darker corners to contrast the beautiful fruit and flower notes that is all framed by mineral old-vine length. “Fornace” balances altitude with the body and mid-palate compactness that clay gives. Casanovina Montosoli brings more force, savory but lifted with spice, firmer tannins and a sense of coiled restlessness ready to expand over the evening. “Del Lume Spento” from the highest block moves into crunchier territory as red cherry merges with cranberry, orange and rose petals with savory spice-filled with youthful energy, decidedly medium weight from those bush-trained vines.

Ultimately, if you are a traditionalist producer, you must focus on the vineyard when there are fewer tools used after the grapes are crushed. This narrow and deep focus is one of my favorite elements in wine, and why I gravitate toward single-varietal bottlings. Seeing Riccardo’s focus on the vineyard balanced by clear-eyed practicality and respect for Brunello’s relatively short tradition (he wasn’t the only one to say the area was one of the poorest and forgotten just 50 years ago) reminded me of our history in California. It is a mix of new and refining a vision, but also respecting tradition when it works, and believing in the value of persistence and incremental refinement.