Press and Acclaim

FOR TASTING NOTES AND RATINGS SEE WINES PAGE HERE

James Suckling: "San Polino is a tiny nirvana for the production of Brunello di Montalcino. Their Brunellos have an incredible clarity and pureness of fruit that is unequalled in the region. Their Helichrysum Brunello in particular is outstanding"

Our Brunello di Montalcino Riserva 2019 has won Gold at the Sommelier Wine Awards 2025

Here is what some of the judges said:

'With pronounced intensity, this is a full bodied wine with smooth tannins and a long finish that's complex with notes of fruit, oak and bottle ageing.' - Konstantinos Katridis, The Fat Duck.

'Ripe, dark cherries and a hint of dried herbs, as well as violets and tobacco, with some velvety tannins.' - Natasha Senina, Chewton Glen.

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Harvest 2024 - Montalcino, by Walter Speller - Published by Jancis Robinson

"Walter canvasses some of Montalcino's top producers for their take on this challenging and unusually abundant vintage (...) 'You know the paradox of Schrödinger's cat?' Katia Nussbaum of San Polino asked me last October, when I inquired how the 2024 growing cycle had been"

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Grower Q&A: Katia Nussbaum - published by The Regenerative Viticulture Foundation

"As I see it, regenerative viticulture means that we (ourselves) and the vines and the soil and everything organic in the vineyard and surrounding areas are all equally part of a giant ecosystem, a common nutrient cycle, the only independent entity being the sun, from which everything else takes life. The act of nurturing a mutually beneficial nutrient cycle is the act of regenerative practices, which by their nature ripple out far beyond the vineyard, winery into the community and beyond".

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San Polino, Daniel Fabbro: Biodiversity and Sangiovese to enhance the Teroir - Vitisbio, 2023

"San Polino was born under the leadership of the Fabbro family, some thirty years ago, on an abandoned hillside, bordered by forest. The diversity of the terroirs and the biodiversity of the estate are a magnificent terrain for the expression of Sangiovese."

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Brunello di Montalcino 2018: Return of the Cool Classic - The Wine Independent, 2023

"'Ah 2018’, declares Katia Nussbaum of San Polino winery, ‘… the wines obviously come from a cooler year. Fruity yet lean, which enables a particular focus. They taste and smell of terroir, of their soil or vineyard ecology rather than heat.' In describing their flagship wine, Helicrysum, she says, 'The crystal clarity reaches us through its freshness, buoyed by a lean structural scaffolding…it smells of sandstone, galestro and grape. For once, we sense Sangiovese grapes rather than just blackcurrant and woody undergrowth!'"

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Performance Art - The Wine Independent, 2019

"Katia Nussbaum and Luigi (Gigi) Fabbro are two of the most friendly people you could ever wish to meet in the wine world. I remember tasting their wine for the first time in 2014 and being surprised by how charming and approachable their Brunello di Montalcino was too."

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James Suckling: Can Brunello’s Cool and Classic 2018 Vintage Be Considered Great? Annual Report, 2022

"Our Brunello tastings in both Tuscany and our Hong Kong office over the past year mostly focused on the 2018 vintage, which will be released on the market beginning in January 2023, and many of the wines we tried show excellent balance and drinkability (...) The vineyards for San Polino Brunello di Montalcino Helichrysum 2018 and San Polino Brunello di Montalcino 2018 have been farmed since 2001."

Click here (opens in new tab) for the full article and to watch the conversation between James Suckling, Katia Nussbaum and other Brunello producers.

From the Etruscans to Biodynamic Brunello: The Ancient History of San Polino - Brunello di Montalcino News, 2020

"San Polino, now a renowned Brunello di Montalcino winery, is said to have been founded in the 10th century, following the barbarian invasions that forced the inhabitants of the Etruscan city of Roselle to seek refuge near the Abbey of Sant’Antimo."

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Of Yeast and Brunello, by Walter Speller - Published by Jancis Robinson, 2019

"At the beginning of August I visited Katia Nussbaum and her husband Luigi Fabbro at San Polino, their estate in Montalcino. Nussbaum, who in a widely admired article wrote about how she would like biodynamics to embrace science and become less dogmatic, wants San Polino to be more than just a wine estate"

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A Brunello Made with Love in Montalcino: San Polino - Lavinium, 2018

"How else could you describe it? From this hillside, you overlook the Val Starcia all the way to the legendary Romanesque Abbey of Sant’Antimo and the hilltop where the tiny medieval village of Castelnuovo dell’Abate stands. But the gaze is more naturally drawn beyond the Orcia River, to the open, harmonious landscape on the northern slope of the majestic Monte Amiata—a dormant volcano rising 1,738 meters, covered with oak woods, chestnut groves, and beech forests that stretch all the way to its summit crater."

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Producer Profile: San Polino, by Richard Baudains - Decanter, 2017

"When I last visited, the washing was hanging out on the line in front of the farmhouse – it’s that kind of place. We conversed around the kitchen table, where we would have tasted the wines too if Nussbaum had not been baking a rather delicious smelling lasagna. Fabbro is a whirlpool of ideas. He is, among other things, a trained chemist and a computer scientist, and in another life he studied biodiversity in the Amazon jungle."

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James Suckling: Mini Vertical of San Polino, 2016

"Luigi and Katia Fabbro have created a tiny nirvana for the production of Brunello di Montalcino on this estate. The almost four hectares of vineyards are biodynamically farmed, and the winemaking is 100 percent handmade by the energetic couple themselves."

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James Suckling: Interview with Luigi Fabbro, 2012

"I'm here in the vineyards of San Polino, a small producer in Montalcino making wonderful Brunello di Montalcino from biodynamically grown grapes. I have never visited here before, so I want to get to know the owners, taste their wines and find out why the wines are such excellent quality"

Click here (opens in new tab) to watch James Suckling's first interview with Luigi.

Montalcino's surprising 2011 vintage, by Walter Speller - Published by Jancis Robinson, 2011

"As mentioned previously, I am often wary about sending out smoke signals on a vintage that is about to go into fermentation vats, so I thought Katia's remarks, one after the other, showed real insight into the assessment process which still has a long way to go."

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Montalcino in miniature: A Potrait of San Polino and the 2009 Vintage, by Tamlin Currin - Published by Jancis Robinson, 2009

"The tiny, rugged estate of San Polino perches on the top of a hill about 10 minutes south east of Montalcino in central Italy, above a breathtaking view of the surrounding valleys and hills. The first 300 Sangiovese vines were planted here in 1998, and in 2001 the owners harvested their first vintage from the three-year-old vines. Luigi Fabbro and Katia Nussbaum bought San Polino in the 1990s. The land was virgin, and had nothing but 1.5 ha (3.7 acres) of olive trees".

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