TOP 100 LISTS

Brunello di Montalcino, once again, on the top of the world, with one of its most prestigious brands: Argiano’s Brunello di Montalcino 2018, the winery of the Brazilian entrepreneur André Santos Esteves, and led by Bernardino Sani, is the “Wine of The Year”, wine No. 1 in the world according to the famous magazine “Wine Spectator”. A record that repeats the historic one of Casanova di Neri’s Brunello di Montalcino 2001 Tenuta Nuova, in 2006, and which sees Italy’s wine at the top of the rankings, for the fifth time, after Antinori’s Solaia 1997, in 2000, Tenuta San Guido’s Sassicaia 2015, in 2018, Tenuta dell’Ornellaia’s Ornellaia 1998, in 2001 (now owned by the Frescobaldi group, but at that time by Lodovico Antinori, ed.).
With Argiano’s Brunello di Montalcino 2018 at no. 1, therefore, the Italian wines in the “Top 10” rise to three, as already in 2022, with Mastroberardino’s Taurasi Radici Riserva 2016 at no. 5, and Antinori’s Chianti Classico Marchese Antinori Riserva 2020 at no. 7. On Monday 13 November, however, the “Top 100” by Wine Spectator will be revealed in its entirety.
“Excited, happy and proud for this recognition – comments Bernardino Sani to WineNews – which comes, exactly, after ten years of hard work that began in 2013, with the arrival of the Esteves family, starting from the restructuring of the vineyards, with the mapping and zoning of the Brunello vineyards, and continued with strong work in the cellar to produce local wines and bring out the strength of this wonderful territory. I am Sienese, I have always worked around Montalcino and I firmly believe that Brunello di Montalcino is among the best wines in the world, something exceptional. I am also very happy that the recognition went to the 2018 vintage, which some have downplayed, while, in my opinion, it is a great vintage that managed to convey the elegance of a territory that is also history, art, culture and beauty”. A wine from Tenuta di Argiano which boasts one of the most illustrious quotes of all: that of the poet Giosuè Carducci, the first Italian Nobel Prize winner for Literature, who, at the end of the nineteenth century, wrote “mi tersi con il vin d’Argiano, il quale è buono tanto”, guest in the Renaissance Villa, designed by the great architect Baldassarre Peruzzi, and Countess Ersilia Caetani Lovatelli, at the time “lady” of one of the oldest estates and cellars in the area, which later belonged to another countess, Noemi Marone Cinzano. And which, today, continues to be a “unique”, thanks to the new ownership of the Brazilian entrepreneur Andrè Esteves, in the “Forbes” list of millionaires, collector of wines and Renaissance art, passionate about Italy, and who has made it a real cellar-museum, among works of art and the greatest Italian and French wines, starting from the historical reserves of Brunello.