The story of Siro Pacenti is intertwined with the story of Brunello di Montalcino itself. Almost unimaginable today, 1950’s Montalcino was among Tuscany’s most economically ravaged municipalities after Phylloxera swept its vineyards the World War II battlefield swept its hillsides. As Italy’s sharecropping system (known as mezzadria) was disbanded following the war, farmers from across the peninsula left the countryside in a pilgrimage to take reliable factory jobs in the post-war economic “miracle” unfolding in northern Italy’s metropolitan centers of Milan and Torino. Siro Pacenti was among the few farmers who stayed on in Montalcino continuing the farming traditions of the zone.

It was around this time, in the mid 1960’s, that the Italian government introduced the new DOC system in effort to organize the heretofore unregulated wine industry with codification of the farming and vinification traditions responsible for Italy’s most respected wines.   The Brunello di Montalcino DOC was ratified in 1966 and in 1967, Siro Pacenti was chosen as one of twenty-five Montalcinese farmers empowered to govern and set the course for what would become one of the nation’s most emblematic wine zones.

Three years later, in 1970, Siro established the Pelagrilli estate with a few small hectares of Brunello vines in the Canalicchio district, just to the north and east of the medieval hilltop village of Montalcino. Pelagrilli has since become the seat of the Siro Pacenti winery and vine plantings on this site have grown to encompass 15 hectares of only Sangiovese Grosso.

As the world slowly awakened to what would become a fever for Brunello, the founding farmers of the appellation enjoyed economic recovery from the dark days of the 1950’s. Siro was fortunate enough to send his son, Giancarlo, to study in Bordeaux—the epicenter (at the time) for wine science and research. Upon returning to Montalcino, Giancarlo came to manage the Pelagrill estate in 1988 and oversaw the family’s first major investment in winery equipment and cellar hygiene.

In 1990, Giancarlo expanded the holdings of the Siro Pacenti winery with the purchase of Piancornello vineyard in the southeast of the Montalcino production zone, near Castelnuovo dell’Abate. Set across a range of hills above the Orcia river, Piancornello is home to a parcel of vines planted in the 1960’s by Giancarlo’s maternal grandfather. Here, the gravelly soils and southerly position compliment Pelagrilli’s sandy-clay soil and cooler growing environment. The historic plantings at Pelagrilli and Piancornello together make Siro Pacenti one the appellation’s largest owners of Sangiovese vines aged 40 years or greater, comprising roughly 1/5 of Montalcino’s total 40+ year-old plantings.

Today, Giancarlo carries on the legacy of his forebears with the maximum of precision and attention to detail. Farming practices are sustainable and aimed at preserving the historic family vines. All replanting at Pelagrilli and Piancornello is propagated through massal selection – cuttings from the best performing of the estate’s oldest vines are used to replace underperforming plants or vineyard blocks. Meticulous fruit selection, for Giancarlo Pacenti, is fundamental to a pure expression of variety and territory. An exacting hand harvest brings top quality fruit to the cellar where it is passed through an optical sorter and individual berries are again sorted by hand both pre and post destemming. This helps to explain why the winery produces an average volume of 66,000 bottles per year even though Brunello DOCG yield regulations would allow upwards of 100,000 bottles from the same number of vines.

In the cellar, fermentations of individual vineyard parcels favor minimal intervention apart from stable temperatures to allow for slow and gentle extraction. A combination of stainless steel and concrete vats are used during the 4-week vinification, after which the young wines are transferred to barrel. Giancarlo’s use of barriques for maturation runs counter to the common wisdom that small barrels of French origin overshadow the elegance of Sangiovese. Every wine in Giancarlo’s cellar includes components that have passed through new French barriques, yet his wines are known to be among the most elegant and pure expressions of Sangiovese available. Giancarlo uses only new wood for cleanliness since even the best hygienic practices cannot return a used barrel to pristine condition. Each barrel is then custom made specifically for its individual purpose in Giancarlo’s cellar each year.

The Siro Pacenti label on a bottle of wine represents an uncompromising approach to winemaking and preservation of rare vines planted at the dawn of the Brunello DOC. These wines create a kind of prism for the drinker through which it is possible to look back to the Brunello DOC’s humble beginnings while at the same time taking in the magnitude of what it has achieved since.

WINES IN THE SIRO PACENTI PORTFOLIO · Siro Pacenti Rosso di Montalcino DOC · Siro Pacenti Pelagrilli Brunello di Montalcino DOCG · Siro Pacenti Vecchie Vigne Brunello di Montalcino DOCG · Siro Pacenti PS Brunello di Montalcino DOCG Riserva