Casanova di Neri

Casanova di Neri rose in a single generation from new arrival to one of Montalcino's defining names. Giovanni Neri bought land in 1971; his son Giacomo, in charge since 1991, turned the family's expanding holdings into a study of Montalcino's different exposures — above all Tenuta Nuova in the warm south of the zone and the amphitheater of Cerretalto, whose Brunello has become one of Italy's most sought-after bottles. The style is dark, polished, and unapologetically modern in its precision, yet each bottling argues for its site rather than the cellar. When the 2001 Tenuta Nuova took Wine Spectator's wine of the year in 2006, the estate's place was settled; the vintages since have done nothing but reinforce it.