A taste of the Biondi-Santi, the ultimate Brunello di Montalcino

John Gielgud, Biondi-Santi and some more affordable recommendations.

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Right, let’s get on with it.

There are three landmark dates in the British middle classes love affair with Tuscany:

1987: The River Cafe Restaurant opens in Hammersmith. Founded by Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray, it wowed London with its Italian peasant dishes and optimistic prices. It was also a pioneer in the chef with only one name movement. Jamie and Hugh both started their careers here.

1988: John Mortimer of Rumpole fame writes a throwaway novel called Summer's Lease about an English family finding themselves in Tuscany. It was later turned into a BBC TV series starring John Gielgud, Leslie Phillips and Susan Fleetwood (sister of Mick Fleetwood).

1989: the Jeffreys family, two adults and three boys aged fourteen, twelve and five (almost exactly the same age as the children in Mortimer’s book), load up their Ford Sierra estate and drive from Buckinghamshire to Siena. We were not getting on as a family before the trip, afterwards it was a miracle there wasn't a divorce or at least a murder. It was a difficult holiday but one good thing came out of it: we discovered Brunello di Montalcino.

My mother's maiden name is Castiglione and looking at the map my father noticed that there was a wine estate nearby called Castiglion del Bosco. This seemed propitious though I later realised that Castiglione is not an uncommon name in Italy. We brought a few cases of its Brunello di Montalcino back to England. Sadly I never got to taste the stuff as it was classified 'much too good to drink' by my father so it sat in the garage until it was expensive vinegar.

Despite or perhaps because no one ever tried this wine, it assumed mythical significance to me. I associated wine in its highest form with Brunello, most notably a case of Sesti 2001 bought for my father’s 60th on Jancis Robinson’s recommendation, sadly all gone now. But I had never tasted the pinnacle of Brunello, Biondi-Santi, until earlier this year. 

Biondi-Santi is the estate that invented Brunello di Montalcino in 1865. It’s had its ups and downs since then. Not least a very Italian rift between father and son Jacopo and Franco Biondi-Santi with the latter starting his own estate at Castello di Montepò. Today, none of the family are involved, the estate was bought outright in 2021 by EPI, a French luxury goods firm that also owns Piper-Heidsieck champagne. 

Earlier this year I was invited to a tasting in the company of the firm’s CEO Giampiero Bertolini. Top author and social media enthusiast Joanne Harris was there too because she had been writer in residence at the estate and written a Brunello-themed short story. She looked surprised when asked to say a few words and then launched into a pitch perfect speech explaining her relationship with the estate. Either she’s the world’s greatest off-the-cuff speaker, or she has actually prepared something - an old showbiz trick. But enough about that, what about the wines?

Well, they were extremely good tasting almost exactly as I hoped they would be, subtle, rich but slightly aloof, definitely aristocratic. We tasted a 1988 riserva (spicy, delicate but by no means past it), a 2010 riserva (heavenly) and a 2018 riserva (young, needs years). We also tried the estate’s second wine, it’s Rosso di Montalcino 2020 which might have been my favourite. It was just so opulent and pleasurable where the grand vins were restrained. It was like the difference between classical music and rock & roll. 

Sadly the Rosso from Biondi-Santi costs as much as everyone else’s Brunello, around £90 (the 2010 riserva Brunello is £385 at Lay & Wheeler). I have, however, had a couple of Rossos recently that while not quite Biondi-Santi were very good indeed.