Cottá, Barbaresco DOCG 2017

Ruby red with bright reflections in the glass. A Barbaresco that oscillates between approachability and youthful obstinacy: taut, linear, carried by an acid backbone that keeps it upright. The drinking window is open, the structure intact.

Cottà lies in the municipality of Neive, home to the Azienda Agricola Sottimano. Rino Sottimano acquired the estate in the late 1960s; today Andrea, Elena and Claudia run the nearly twenty hectares. The cru yields fruit-driven wines with notes of red and black fruit. Rino planted the vines himself in the 1970s and 80s; many are now fifty to sixty years old.

Pure Nebbiolo, fermented spontaneously with wild yeasts from vineyard and cellar. The must stays on the skins for up to sixty days. Malolactic fermentation only begins once the cellar warms naturally in spring, and occasionally extends into autumn. Bottled unfiltered and unfined.

Multi-layered on the nose: cherry and red berries, herbal notes of marjoram and thyme, woody spice towards sandalwood and vetiver, then black tea, dark tobacco and dried cherries. On the palate, firm, almost chewable tannins and the bite typical of Sottimano, along with youthfully bright acidity and vertical drinking pull rather than breadth.

White bean cassoulet in tomato sugo with thyme and sage, gurnard on grilled radicchio with bacon and balsamic vinegar or duck with red cabbage and dumplings.

For over forty years the estate has worked without herbicides or synthetic fertilisers: the grass between the rows is mowed two to three times a year, and every second row is ploughed in autumn. Cottà is one of five single vineyards from which the estate's Barbaresco is bottled. 14.0% vol., dry.