2022 Cardedu Vermentino di Sardegna 'Nùo'

100% organically farmed Vermentino from 35 acres of vines in San Vito on crumbling granite soils with high levels of quartz, especially feldspar, that gives the soils a reddish tint. Fermented in stainless steel for six days at 15°C, with 6-8 hours of skin contact. Élevage in room-large cement tanks from 1950’s. Bottled unfiltered and unfined. Full malolactic fermentation. 20 mg/L added during the harvest and 20 mg/L added at the end of the vinification. 12.5% alcohol. 1,000 cases made. 

A savoury and light white wine: sea salt, sage, basil, rosemary, cedar, and a foundation of chalky stone fruits. Spaghetti alla Bottarga; grilled shrimp with rosemary; a chunk of Pecorino Sardo. With vegetables, it becomes the special sauce.

Sergio Loi is a 4th generation traditional Sardinian producer, whose family winery from the early 1900s has always practiced no chemical farming and minimum intervention in the cellar. The Cardedu [car-DAY-do] vineyards are located on the island’s sparsely populated southeast coast, where soils are crumbling granite near the coast and schist in ragged-dry cliffs around Jerzu.  Sardinian producers are now catching up in popularity to those of Italy’s other large island, Sicilia. One difference that remains is that Sardinia remains more ‘lost in time.’ Cardedu balances on that edge of being  traditional but also thoughtful, especially considering today’s warmer climate. In the last few vintages – extremely hot and dry – Cardedu has made lower alcohol wines by picking earlier and careful vineyard management. The result, thankfully, isn’t 10% alcohol overtly hipster juice without terroir, Sergio says; it’s just wine that tastes more like the cool vintages he enjoyed in the ’70’s.