Salvatore Vineyards 2014 Sangiovese vs. Brunello di Montalcino - a podcast by Cody Vladimir Burkett

In this episode of the Arizona Wine Monk podcast, Elizabeth Krecker and I sit outside on a starry night and drink the 2014 Salvatore Vineyards Sangiovese alongside the 2012 Licini Brunello di Montalcino. Both of these bottles were of equal value and from small, pocket-sized vineyards.   Hope you enjoy!

Interestingly, Licini is one of the few pre-phylloxera vineyards remaining in Italy.  As Elizabeth excitedly messaged me later, after we recorded:

Cody, I totally stumbled onto this jaw-dropping information about Lisini today while studying for a test. Believe me, I'd hunted for information about Lisini before our podcast, but never saw this. Don't know if there is any way to record an appendix to our podcast (Arizona Sangiovese vs. Brunello di Montalcino), but this might be well worth adding in some way before it is published...No wonder this wine was impossible to find on the internet! With just 1/2 hectare of vines planted, this is a tiny, Arizona-sized vineyard. An even more perfect comparison to Arizona wine than we realized.

From "The Great Escape" by Kerin O'Keefe, published in Decanter, Oct. 10, 2005, retrieved from https://www.decanter.com/features/the-great-escape-247887/ 

Another vineyard untouched by the blight is the Lisini estate in Montalcino. Widely noted for its Brunello, Lisini boasts a half-hectare vineyard of Sangiovese, with vines dating back to the mid-1800s, which inexplicably never succumbed to phylloxera. 

According to cellar master Filippo Paoletti, ‘No one knows why this vineyard was never attacked, as it is no different from those that were destroyed. It is, however, about a kilometre away from the nearest vineyard and is surrounded by olive groves.’ When consultant oenologist Franco Bernabei first set eyes on the ancient vines there was no doubt in his mind what to do.

Lorenzo Lisini of the family estate recalls: ‘We used to use the pre-phylloxera grapes along with those from our other vineyards for Brunello. But Bernabei suggested that we make one wine from this vineyard to honour the rare vines, using traditional techniques.’ Since 1985 the winery has produced Prefillossero. The wine is aged for one to two years, depending on the vintage, in Slavonian oak. Further ageing takes place in large glass demijohns for another two years before it is bottle aged. The wine has devout followers, including Italian wine critic Luigi Veronelli, who inscribed on a bottle of the 1987, on show at the winery, that drinking Prefillossero was like listening to ‘the earth singing to the sky’

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