Producer profile: Le Potazzine

An organic estate which is 'an oasis of calm'....

Producer profile: Le Potazzine

Brunellos from Le Potazzine have regularly ranked among my top wines at the annual tasting organised by the producers’ consorzio, but I only recently had the opportunity to visit the winery.

I found an organic estate owned and run by Gigliola Giannetti and former Brunello consorzio oenologist Giuseppe Gorelli.

The main vineyard is planted where chestnut trees had grown before, an oasis of calm at 500m, to the southwest of Montalcino.

As a winemaker Gorelli tends, perhaps surprisingly given his background, towards non-interventionalism.

He ferments in open wooden vats with indigenous yeasts and without temperature control, which is certainly not conventional oenological practice.

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In the past he worked alongside Giulio Gambelli at the consorzio and many of the elements of the legendary master taster’s touch are evident in Le Potazzine wines: late picking and long maceration times, the pale shades, the lovely natural expression on the nose, the soft, ripe tannins, and the sensation of breadth on the palate.

Production from the 5ha property is small and sold on allocation, which means limited availability.

The surest place to find a bottle is at the busy trattoria that the Gorelli family runs in Montalcino’s main square.

Richard Baudains is the regional chair for Veneto in the Decanter World Wine Awards.