Keeping Up With Tradition in Tuscany A view of the Montalcino vineyards from the Conti Costanti winery. MONTALCINO, ITALY - When asked to name his biggest worries, one Montalcino vintner mentions the deer, which are gobbling up his vines. Another says the wild boar are even worse. Er, what about the 2008 scandal in which some of the biggest producers in Montalcino were suspected of fiddling with the rules for Brunello di Montalcino, one of the greatest Italian red wines? "Of course it was a big deal, but the court did the right thing, and now we are moving on," said Franco Biondi-Santi, the 90-year-old patriarch of the winery that bears his family name, and a father figure to the entire Montalcino wine industry. Whenever you have a crisis it takes some time to get over it. Mr. Biondi-Santi has seen a few crises. There was World War II, when the Biondi-Santis walled off a secret cellar to prevent the retreating Germans from helping themselves to 19th-century vintages. There were the family feuds, one of which briefly pitted Mr. Biondi-Santi against his son Jacopo over whether to modernize the Biondi-Santi wine style. One look at the elder Mr. Biondi-Santi, his white hair, silk cravat and tweed jacket perfectly in place, and you have no doubt who won that one. For Il Dottore, as he is known in Montalcino, there was never any question of changing the way his Brunello was made. Some of his fellow producers were less steadfast. In the scandal, which became known as Brunellogate, some of them were suspected of having broken a rule restricting Brunello to a single variety - the indigenous sangiovese, which is famous for its toughness and austerity, but also for its character. In an effort to make their wines more accessible, they allegedly blended in Bordeaux varieties like merlot and cabernet sauvignon, which are richer and smoother. Some people wondered what the fuss was about. Other sangiovese-based wines from Tuscany, like Chianti and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, are permitted to include small percentages of international varieties. But Montalcino, one of those classic hilltop towns whose honey-colored stones and vine-covered ridges rise out of a sea of fog on autumn mornings, is different. It is one of the more southerly Tuscan wine denominations; from one or two of its highest points you can see the Mediterranean. Both ripeness and freshness, the twin and often mutually exclusive poles of much great red wine, are achievable here. Thanks to the work of Mr. Biondi-Santi's ancestors, who identified a special strain of sangiovese for Brunello and planted it on a sloping vineyard just south of the village, the red wines of Montalcino should represent the epitome of this great variety. True, traditional Brunello can be uncompromising when young, but it gets more and more graceful as it ages. The texture, which starts out as raspy as raw cinnamon, softens to something more refined but equally persistent, like velvet. The flavors - black cherries, dried flowers and herbs - take on an attractive earthiness, but remain strikingly fresh, thanks to high acidity. On a recent visit, I tasted a 1967 Riserva, a premium classification for Brunello deemed to be capable of especially long aging, and a 1979 Rosso di Montalcino, supposedly a lower grade of wine, from the Il Poggione estate. Both were still going strong. "It is not really possible to make Brunello that is drinkable now and in 30 years," said Fabrizio Bindocci, director of Il Poggione and president of the Brunello producers" consortium. Some of Mr. Bindocci's fellow Brunello vintners have certainly been trying. While adding international varieties is clearly a no-no, they are persisting with other, perfectly legal techniques, like aging the wine in small barrels rather than in the giant casks that Mr. Biondi-Santi and other traditionalists favor. The small barrels impart a rich layer of smooth, oaky flavor to the wine - to the delight of some consumers and the outrage of purists, who see oak flavors as inimical to the traditions of Montalcino and Brunello. Traditional is a relative concept here. While the Biondi-Santi estate has deep roots in Montalcino, it was one of only a handful of producers in the region until the 1960s, when the Brunello denomination was created. Over the next few decades, Montalcino experienced a boom like few other wine regions, as Brunello became one of the most popular (and expensive) Italian wines in export markets like the United States.