Italy · Montalcino

Tenute Silvio Nardi

Two-estate Brunello producer on opposite slopes of the Montalcino hill, farming Sangiovese Grosso across 49 registered hectares and assembling its flagship from 20 separately vinified parcels. Four proprietary clones entered Italy's national register of varieties in 2019.

The producer

Tenute Silvio Nardi farms two estates on opposite sides of the Montalcino hill in southern Tuscany, and that geography is the engine of the entire range. Casale del Bosco sits on the cooler north-west slope, where Silvio Nardi arrived in 1950. Manachiara faces east and sits warmer. Eighty hectares of vineyard spread across 36 individually named vineyards; 49 of those hectares carry the Brunello di Montalcino DOCG registration. Sangiovese Grosso, called Brunello by growers in Montalcino, is the only variety planted across both estates for all DOCG and DOC production. The estate Brunello is assembled from 20 separately vinified lots drawn from parcels on both properties, while the Manachiara cru keeps the east-facing vineyard apart as a single-site wine with a denser, more concentrated character.

Silvio Nardi co-founded the Consorzio del Vino Brunello di Montalcino in 1967. His youngest daughter Emilia entered the business in 1985 and backed wholesale changes to production and management throughout the 1990s: full vineyard replanting, a zoning program that divided the land into 36 parcels and 50 sub-parcels through deep soil sampling, and a clonal selection program that evaluated around 120 individual Sangiovese Grosso vines through micro-vinification trials over nearly three decades. Four of those vines were certified by Italy's Ministry of Agriculture and entered the national register of varieties on June 7, 2019, making them available to any Italian grower through the national system.

Known for

Brunello di Montalcino DOCG, including the single-vineyard Manachiara cru and the traditional passito Occhio di Pernice Vin Santo.

Notable facts

The story

The Clone That Took Thirty Years

In the early 1990s, the estate planted around 120 individual Sangiovese Grosso vines in a dedicated experimental field on the property. Each vine was observed through full growing seasons: growth habit, yield, cluster weight, skin thickness, and how it responded in dry and wet years. When harvest came, each vine's grapes were pressed separately in micro-vinification trials, and the wines were assessed one by one. Most vines were set aside. Four were not. Those four entered Italy's official certification process with the Ministry of Agriculture, a formal sequence of field trials, documentation, and regulatory review. On June 7, 2019, they were entered in the national register of varieties under the Tenute Silvio Nardi name. Cuttings from those four clones are now available through the national system to any Italian grower who applies for them. A vineyard decision made in the early 1990s became a permanent addition to the gene pool of Italian viticulture.

From the atlas

Tenute Silvio Nardi

At A Glance

The Producer

Tenute Silvio Nardi farms two estates on opposite sides of the Montalcino hill in southern Tuscany, and the gap between those two sides is the central fact of everything it produces. Casale del Bosco sits on the north-west slope, where Silvio Nardi arrived in 1950. Manachiara faces east. The same appellation, the same grape, and markedly different ground.

Sangiovese Grosso, called Brunello by growers in Montalcino, is the only variety planted across both estates for all DOCG and DOC production. Eighty hectares of vineyard spread across 36 individually named vineyards; 49 of those hectares carry the Brunello di Montalcino DOCG registration. The estate Brunello draws on parcels from both properties, assembled from 20 separately vinified lots, while the Manachiara cru keeps the east-facing vineyard apart as a single-site wine with a denser, more concentrated character.

Silvio Nardi was one of the founders of the Consorzio del Vino Brunello di Montalcino in 1967, when the appellation's international standing was still being built. His youngest daughter Emilia entered the business in 1985 and backed wholesale changes to production and management. What followed in the 1990s was a thorough scientific re-examination of the estate's own ground and its own vines, a project that ran for three decades before its final entry in Italy's national register of grape varieties in 2019.

Place

Montalcino is a hilltop town in Siena province, and the Brunello di Montalcino DOCG covers a large and varied territory around it. Not all of that territory is the same. The northern and western slopes tend to higher altitude and cooler conditions; the southern and eastern slopes sit lower and warmer. The Nardi estates occupy both extremes: Casale del Bosco on the cooler north-west, Manachiara on the warmer south-east.

That orientation governs the wine range. The estate Brunello is blended across both zones to carry the full width of what the hill produces. Manachiara is kept separate precisely because its east-facing position generates fruit with a different density and concentration. In the glass, the difference between the estate label and the single-vineyard cru traces directly back to the difference in where those vines grow.

Woodland borders most parcels on both properties. The holm oaks and Mediterranean scrub that edge the vineyards create small isolated growing systems, slowing air movement and shaping the microclimate around each block.

Soil And Site

The two estates differ in altitude, climate, and soil composition. Specific soil types were not asserted from verified sources, but the zoning program the estate completed in the 1990s mapped those differences in detail: after soil sampling at multiple depths, the vineyards were divided into 36 parcels and 50 sub-parcels using soil and climate characteristics. That subdivision is not administrative. It determines which fruit goes into which wine.

Manachiara faces east. Casale del Bosco occupies the western side. Those orientations set the morning and afternoon light exposure for each estate, which compounds across a growing season into a measurable difference in ripeness timing, tannin character, and fruit weight.

Story

Silvio Nardi arrived at Casale del Bosco in 1950. In 1962 he acquired the south-east property that would become Manachiara. Five years later he helped found the Consorzio del Vino Brunello di Montalcino, one of the institutional bodies that shaped how the appellation was governed and promoted internationally.

Emilia Nardi, Silvio's youngest daughter, entered the family business in 1985. Working with her brothers, she backed radical changes to both winemaking and company management. The visible consequence of those changes came through the 1990s: full vineyard replanting, the deep zoning that produced 36 parcels and 50 sub-parcels, and the launch of a clonal selection program that would run for nearly thirty years.

The clonal program began by planting around 120 individual Sangiovese Grosso vines in a dedicated experimental field. Each was observed through full growing seasons and pressed separately in micro-vinification trials. Most were set aside. Four were not. Those four went through Italy's official certification process with the Ministry of Agriculture and entered the national register of varieties on June 7, 2019. An estate that co-founded the Brunello appellation in 1967 had, by 2019, added four certified Sangiovese Grosso clones to Italian viticultural heritage.

Vineyards And Cellar

Vines are trained to spur cordon with six to eight buds per plant. Planting density runs from 5,000 to 6,000 vines per hectare, and yields are held to 50 to 60 quintals per hectare. The average vine age across the estates is 15 years, reflecting the wholesale replanting that began in the early 1990s.

The four proprietary clones certified in 2019 came from a selection process that evaluated around 120 original Sangiovese Grosso individuals through micro-vinification. The four certified clones came from the selection process. Cuttings from the four certified clones are available through the national registry to any grower in Italy who wants them.

No verified information is available on fermentation vessel type, maceration durations, or the specific oak programme for the Brunello or the Manachiara cru. The Occhio di Pernice follows a traditional passito production chain: grapes are dried on mats before pressing, then aged in small caratelli barrels using a madre yeast culture maintained across generations.

Wines

The range builds from Rosso di Montalcino DOC up through two distinct Brunello expressions, with the Occhio di Pernice as a separate passito category.

Rosso di Montalcino DOC is the earlier-drinking expression from the same two-estate vineyard base. Aged in steel rather than extended oak, it carries red cherry and plum on the nose, moderate tannin, lively acidity, and a clean, direct finish. It is the lightest bottle in the range and the most approachable without cellaring.

Brunello di Montalcino DOCG (estate label) is assembled from 20 separately vinified lots drawn from parcels across both Casale del Bosco and Manachiara. The multi-lot approach allows each contrasting slope to contribute its own character to the blend. The wine shows garnet with orange tints at maturity, aromatically open with red fruit and warm spice, full-bodied with firm tannin and the acid backbone to carry it for many years.

Brunello di Montalcino DOCG Manachiara isolates the single east-facing Manachiara vineyard from the estate blend and vinifies it alone. The wine is denser and more concentrated than the estate label, with darker fruit character and a longer ageing trajectory.

Vin Santo DOC Occhio di Pernice blends Sangiovese with Malvasia Nera. Grapes are dried on mats before pressing, and the wine ages in small caratelli using a madre culture maintained through generations. Deep amber in colour, oxidative in character, rich with dried fruit, and notably sweet, though the Sangiovese component provides enough acidity to hold the sweetness in check through a long finish.

In The Glass

The Rosso opens with red cherry, plum, and a clean herbal note. The tannins are moderate and supple, and the acidity is lively enough to make it feel fresh at the table without needing years to open. Drink it within a few years of release.

The estate Brunello shows differently: deeper garnet, concentrated red fruit warming toward dried cherry and spice as it opens, with firm tannins that take time to give. The acid line is firm and even, holding the fruit in check and pointing toward a long development in bottle. A 2019 estate Brunello carries the kind of ripeness that is expressive now but has a decade or more of movement ahead.

The Manachiara cru goes further in density: darker fruit on the nose, a more compact and concentrated mid-palate, and tannins that are tighter on release. It asks for more patience than the estate label and rewards it with a wine that develops more slowly and sits at a different weight in the mouth.

The Occhio di Pernice operates in a different register entirely. Deep amber, oxidative aromas of dried apricot and fig, sweetness that is genuine and long, and a finish where the Sangiovese acidity cuts across the residual sugar to keep the wine moving rather than sitting heavy.

A Bottle To Understand It

Start with the Brunello di Montalcino DOCG estate label. It draws from 20 separately vinified lots across both Casale del Bosco and Manachiara, so the single bottle covers the full width of what the Nardi estates produce: north-west slope fruit and east-facing fruit, blended after separate vinification to show how the two halves of the appellation fit together. The wine is garnet with orange tints, expressive with red fruit and spice on the nose, full-bodied, firm in tannin, and persistent in flavor. A 2017 or 2019 vintage shows this character at a readable stage: open enough to drink, but clearly still in motion.

Anecdote

In the early 1990s, the estate planted around 120 individual Sangiovese Grosso vines in a dedicated experimental field on the property. Each vine was observed through full growing seasons: growth habit, yield, cluster weight, skin thickness, and how it behaved in dry and wet years. When harvest came, each vine's grapes were pressed separately in micro-vinification trials, and the wines were assessed one by one. Most vines were set aside. Four were not. Those four entered Italy's official certification process with the Ministry of Agriculture, a formal sequence of field trials, documentation, and regulatory review. On June 7, 2019, they were entered in the national register of varieties under the Tenute Silvio Nardi name. Cuttings from those four clones are now available through the national system to any Italian grower who applies for them. The experimental field decision made in the early 1990s became a permanent addition to the gene pool of Italian viticulture.

Final Word

Tenute Silvio Nardi arrived in Montalcino when Brunello di Montalcino was still a local wine, helped govern the appellation's rise through the consortium, and then spent thirty years building a scientific understanding of its own vines that ended with four certified clones in Italy's national registry. The two-estate geography gives the range its architecture: one blended wine that captures both slopes, one cru that isolates the east-facing vineyard, and a traditional passito that sits apart from both. The place and the work behind it are legible in every bottle.

Sources

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