Brunello di Montalcino, Fornace, 2020

Name: Brunello di Montalcino, Fornace
Brand: Le Ragnaie
Price: 500 GBP

Available Vintages

all 2007 2010 2011 2013 2016 2020

justerini & brooks tasting note

Back after a 4-year hiatus, Fornace offers deeper fruits with blood orange and grapefruit notes, buttressed by succulent warming cloak of cherries and strawberries. Sweet tannins with a bit of grip on the finish, Fornace is typically plusher and broader on the palate with a certain sandy elegance to the tannins. The 2020 is not heavy but textured and immediately seductive. Fornace is a single plot in the higher part of the Castelnuovo dell’Abate zone, at 400 metres above sea level. The soils here have more clay in them than the Vecchie Vigne, resulting in rounder more powerful style of wine. Aged for 36 months in large Slavonian oak casks.

critic reviews

94/100Eric Guido,Vinous

Crushed ashen stones, grilled herbs, underbrush and hints of smoke define the 2020 Brunello di Montalcino Fornace. It's soft-textured and round, with more black fruits than red and a core of cool-toned acidity that maintains balance as blood orange and saline minerals saturate. The 2020 finishes with a minty freshness contrasting edgy tannins and a slight citrus tinge that adds lovely complexities.

DRINKING WINDOW 2026 - 2036

date of review 11/2025

96/100Monica Larner,Robert Parker Wine Advocate

This wine usually shows a more relaxed character compared to the other bottles in this series of single-vineyard wines from Le Ragnaie. The 2020 Brunello di Montalcino Fornace draws its fruit from a vineyard located at 380 meters in elevation not too far from Mastrojanni. The site was once at the bottom of an ancient seabed, and there are round limestone rocks as a result. That theme of "roundness" is transferred to the palate, where the wine offers layers of plush and supple fruit. Like the others, it ages in large oak casks for 3.5 years and is bottled directly from the botte. Only 3,000 bottles were created. In a tasting of his cru wines, Riccardo Campinoti serves this wine last because it delivers a bigger sense of concentration and textural density (while remaining within the transparency of the house style).

DRINKING WINDOW 2025 - 2045

date of review 11/2024