Learning to make high quality wine is not always an easy task, and achieving important results normally requires patience, toil, and, above all, years of application and practice: winemaking, after all, is not an industrial process and the raw material to work with – the grapes – are available once, and only once, a year.

Not exactly an industrial process where, with the proper work force, a laboratory, and capital, experiments can proceed virtually on a daily basis.

There are, nonetheless, as always, exceptions to the rule, the famous “quick learners” who seem to be able to pick up in a brief period of time knowledge which others labor years to absorb.

One of these - relatively, he as well can only make wine once a year - enfants prodiges is now working in Montalcino, Roberto Giannelli, ably aided by his dynamic and talented wife, Maria Cristina Modonesi. Like many of the current entrepreneurs in Montalcino, Giannelli came to grapes from an entirely different line of work, but it did not take him long after his purchase of the San Filippo estate in the eastern sector of the township.

The choice itself revealed a sure nose for the main chance: the property has such illustrious neighbors as Giulio Salvioni, Diego Molinari, and the Mantengoli brothers. Well aware that he needed capable professional help to assist in the vineyard and cellar work, his choice in this case was equally unerring: Paolo Caciorgna, a gifted oenologist with much experience in the zone.

The wines, right from the beginning, even those from such a torrid vintage as the 2003, were entirely convincing. And the pace has only quickened in more recent years: the 2006 and 2007 wines were among the finest in all of Montalcino and there is every reason to believe that this is only the initial phase of a long and highly satisfying series to come.