Caroline Pobitzer grew up in Castel Katzenzungen, her family's Renaissance castle in Alto Adige, where she took care of a grapevine said to be 600 years old . In 1997 she bought a small farm just outside the town of Montalcino, directly beside Biondi-Santi's Tenuta Greppo, the property where Brunello was first made. The agronomist she hired to advise her, Jan Hendrik Erbach, a Geisenheim-trained German winemaker who had been working in France, became her partner in the cellar and in life. Neither had roots in Tuscany, and within two decades the pair had built Pian dell'Orino into one of the most celebrated names in the appellation, a story critics have described as one of Montalcino's most remarkable ascents. They farmed organically from their first planting in 1998 and biodynamically since 2003, among the earliest in the zone to do so, and they release their Brunello a year or more later than their neighbors, when Erbach judges it ready. Just under six hectares of sangiovese, spread across five named parcels whose soils they have mapped and studied since the beginning, yield a Rosso di Montalcino and two vineyard-designated Brunelli.
Bassolino di Sopra is the estate's cru, made only in vintages Erbach considers exceptional: seven releases since 2004, and none at all in 2018. The fruit comes from the uppermost section of the Pian Bassolino vineyard, a former sheep pasture a few kilometers from the cellar toward Castelnuovo dell'Abate, planted in 1998 to seven clones of sangiovese between 370 and 390 meters on a south-southwest slope that faces the volcanic cone of Monte Amiata. The soil is a fractured mix of ancient continental conglomerate, gray-brown clay and limestone, and Cretaceous sandstone, and yields never exceed 30 hectoliters per hectare. Fermentation starts on its own with indigenous yeasts in vat, without temperature control, and the wine stays on its skins for weeks, completing malolactic conversion in the same tank before roughly four years in large oak casks and a further rest in bottle.
Audrey Frick at Jeb Dunnuck awarded the 2019 a perfect 100 points, and Eric Guido at Vinous gave it 99, calling it a model of elegance, power, and complexity. The nose opens on crushed stone and fresh spearmint before black cherry, kirsch, black raspberry, and violet leaf come forward, with a thread of sweet orange peel running underneath. The palate is silken and long, medium to full-bodied, with velvety tannins and pinpoint acidity carrying the fruit toward a finish of clove and cured tobacco leaf. Despite its depth and concentration, it finishes remarkably fresh. Drink 2029–2055, or earlier with a long decant.
The 2019 reached the market this spring, more than six years after harvest, and only six bottles have come to Yes Society.
