Pietroso, Brunello Di Montalcino and Gianni Pignattai

Winemaker Gianni Pignattai from the winery Pietroso explains the characteristics and history of his family vineyards in Montalcino and what is so unique about his Rosso and Brunello wines.

What is most important for Montalcino and for the Sangiovese grape are the vineyards
and in my opinion, that is where quality is created. A part of the vineyards are down here.
We are at an altitude of 500 meters and here we have a good exposure at sunset
We also have more vineyards in the Brunello area
Always more or less a hectare of land, always at an altitude above 400 meters
Here we have a terrain with different characteristics, here we have more rocks underneath
and sand on top. There we have exclusively marl.
So here we have more finesse and there we have more structure.
The last vineyard we recently acquired, is the one where we make the Villa Montosoli IGT
and there, in my opinion, we are on the most prestigious hill of Montalcino.
The winery was created by my grandfather in the 70s.
My grandfather started out just for fun
He always produced wine, he helped other wineries produce wine as a consultant
as a supervisor at various wineries in Montalcino.
The goal was to drink it, but even if they drank a lot, they still couldn't drink it all!
And so he started bottling it. The first bottle of Pietroso Brunello is from 1978.
I started just out of curiosity, but this is the type of thing that you either abandon right away
because it's truly hard work, or become passionate and can no longer do anything else.
Vinification in oak is very interesting for Sangiovese, but much riskier.
Either you keep it empty and you have to take care of it, sanitize it, or treat it with sulfur
Or you keep it full, like now. In this one we have the Rosso 2017.
As long as there's wine inside, bacteria do not develop.
These, that are even older, are completely untreated.
There's a drain, see? I don't think you'll see it anywhere else.
But yes, I like it a lot, I'm proud of it.
It's very useful to clean them. Otherwise you would never wash them.
Pressure cleaning heads are available, but due to the Venturi effect, they also reaspirate the dirty liquid.
In any case, you're always washing with dirty water. However, here we only wash with clean water
Because the water is drained immediately.