Biondi Santi

At the end of the twentieth century, Wine Spectator decided to draw up the list of twelve wines to remember from all of the twentieth century, only one was the chosen Italian label: the Brunello di Montalcino Biondi Santi 1955 Riserva, or the extraordinary vintage of a wine which, with good reason, is part of Italian winemaking mythology and beyond.
This alone would be enough to summarize the uniqueness of the Biondi Santi family and its Greppo Estate, inextricably linked to the history of the Brunello appellation.
It all began in the mid-nineteenth century, when Clemente Santi – a little pioneer, a little alchemist – experimented with new oenological techniques and obtained the first awards for his “chosen red wine”, so much so that he was awarded at the Universal Exposition of Paris in 1867. From then on it is a succession of talented and inspired figures who, generation after generation, have worked to make Brunello the perfect expression of the Montalcino territory.
Ferruccio Biondi Santi – Clemente’s nephew – is the true inventor of Brunello, the one who first selects and vinifies a Sangiovese clone in Montalcino; to his son Tancredi, on the other hand, we recognize the intuition of the practice of filling old reserves with wine from the same vintage (in 1927 for the first time, for Riserve 1888 and 1891). It is then up to another legendary figure, Franco Biondi Santi, who died in 2013 and considered the keeper of the Brunello tradition, the burden and the honor of taking over the reins of the company and bringing its production from 4 to 25 hectares. Many things have changed after the death of the great Franco Biondi Santi, but the winery, now led by the French group EPI, continues to be the reference point for the Montalcino area and the true keeper of the ancient Brunello tradition.