Sardinia on a Roll

BY IAN D’AGATA | OCTOBER 11,
2016&nbsp;&nbsp;



















There are few more exciting wine-production areas in
Italy today than Sardinia. Family-run estates and cooperatives are producing a
bevy of high-quality, generally inexpensive red and white wines that deserve to
be better known. Add in some of Italy’s best rosés and sweet wines, and
Sardinia offers something for everyone, beginners and experts alike.

Sardinia’s estates and social cooperatives
are clearly more confident and goal-directed—and better equipped—than they were
20 years ago, and the island’s wines just keep getting better. Co -ops have
been shooting for—and achieving—quality as well as quantity. The region’s many
smartly run family estates, while remaining for the most part proudly anchored
to tradition, are now making cleaner and more precise wines that are more in
tune with today’s fast-paced lifestyles. The fact that Sardinia’s wines are
generally not expensive is an added bonus.It All Starts with the Grapes&nbsp;





















Along with Campania, Piedmont,
Friuli-Venezia-Giulia and Valle d’Aosta, Sardinia is the region in Italy that
relies most heavily on indigenous cultivars. There’s little emphasis on
international grapes that, in Italy at least, often give wines of limited
interest compared to wines made elsewhere in the world from the same varieties.
The key to Sardinia’s success is the high quality of the island’s native grapes,
one obvious example being Cannonau, a local biotype of Grenache. Sardinia’s
Carignan wines have long been viewed—and not just by me—as the best made
anywhere in the world. No other wine region has anywhere near the success with
Vermentino (the Rolle or Malvoisie Gros Grains of southern France
and the Mediterranean basin) that Sardinia has. In fact, Vermentino wines are selling
so well that many southern French producers have taken to referring to their
versions by their Italian name (charmingly pronouncing it Vermentinò, with the accent on the “o”), abandoning the use of “Rolle.” This is a rather unusual step
for the French, which tells you something about the success these Sardinian
wines have met in wine-loving circles everywhere.<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1476142858282-Vernaccia+di+Oristano+2+copy.JPG">Vernaccia Vineyards in Oristano 



















Among the many native cultivars that
Sardinia can call its own, there are at least three that I believe to be particularly
interesting: Monica, Cagnulari and Semidano. Monica is actually not one grape
but rather a group of unrelated Sardinian grapes; in fact, there are at least
four different Monica varieties on the island, but only one is grown in any
significant quantities. This variety has a knack for delivering delightfully
perfumed, medium-bodied wines brimming with bright red cherry and small red
berry aromas and flavors complicated by sweet spices and floral nuances. Especially
in the hands of talented producers, these wines are very much like slightly
fuller-bodied pure Sangioveses. The number of monovariety Monica wines has
steadily increased over the years, a sure-fire sign that more and more
producers are taking notice of its potential. It’s hard to predict whether it
will undergo a similar rise to fame as Puglia’s Uva di Troia, Friuli-Venezia-Giulia’s
Schioppettino or Abruzzo’s Pecorino, all of which were nearly impossible to
find as monovariety wines only a generation ago but nowadays are each made by
dozens of different estates, but I’d say that Monica has similar potential.



















Cagnulari is also beginning to blossom.
Whereas five or six years ago I would have had trouble writing about more than
one or two monovariety Cagnulari wines, this is no longer the case as an ever-growing
number of Sardinian producers have added a monovariety example to their wine
portfolios. Mesa is the latest well-known Sardinian producer to do so. With
Cagnulari, unlike with Monica, some of the wines don’t resemble each other very
much: some are light and breezy while others are tough and brooding, and some
display aromas and flavors reminiscent of red fruits while others speak of
black fruits. A possible explanation for the wide range of Cagnulari styles is that
some estates are unwittingly using Bovale Grande, which is often confused in
vineyards with Cagnulari. But the two varieties, although genetically similar,
produce different wines. I hope Sardinian producers will quickly come to grips
with this problem, which is a momentum killer on the world wine stage—something
most Italian producers, who prize individualism and creativity most, fail to
realize. For instance, among the many reasons why Burgundy and Champagne wines
are international favorites is that people buying those wines know pretty much
what they are getting every time they open a bottle. On the other hand, wines
from the likes of Chianti, where just about anything can be added to
Sangiovese, or Alsace, where so many so-called dry wines actually have widely
varying levels of residual sweetness, have encountered commercial difficulties
over the years.















Last but not least, of the Sardinian varieties with high
potential, Semidano is the least known. This is mainly because it’s more
difficult to work with than Vermentino. But Semidano can be used to make white
wines of uncommon refinement, showcasing delightful minerality and floral
nuances. I hope it will soon be produced as a monovariety wine more widely than
it already is: Semidano wines are currently being made only by the Cantina Il
Mogoro, a large social co-op, and by a few very small local producers.
Hopefully, knowledgeable and intellectually curious sommeliers around the world
will increasingly serve such wines to increase their international market’s
awareness.&nbsp; 

Vermentino or BustFor now, there is no doubt that
Vermentino rules Sardinia’s wine roost. So it should, as the variety allows
producers to fashion a very wide range of different and thoroughly delicious
wines. Sardinian Vermentinos can run the gamut from easygoing and quaffable to
more complex wines redolent of resiny, mineral and pungently floral notes. This
is especially true of the Vermentinos made from grapes grown in the beautiful
Gallura area, in Sardinia’s northeastern corner, where soils characterized mainly
by degraded granite contribute to turning Vermentino into much bigger and more complex
wines than those made with grapes grown elsewhere and labeled Vermentino di
Sardegna. These latter bottlings are much more fruity and charming but
ultimately less complex and savory than Vermentino di Gallura.

















<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1476142932987-Vermentino+vineyards+at+Capichera+copy.JPG">Vermentino vineyards at Capichera Sardinia offers so much more than
Vermentino, and my hope is that producers and consumers alike will become more
aware of its other offerings. On the red side of the wine spectrum, I am pleased
to report that Sardinia’s Cannonau wines are increasingly becoming more
polished and less superripe. Although alcohol levels can be very high. Until
viticultural practices change, or creative steps are taken in the cellars, the rather
high alcohol content of the island’s reds are presently unavoidable given Sardinia’s
hot climate. 



















I also urge wine lovers to try the
magnificent wines made with the Vernaccia di Oristano grape—not to be confused with Tuscany’s Vernaccia di San
Gimignano, a completely different and unrelated variety. Vernaccia di Oristano
is used to make wines that undergo a natural controlled oxidation. The wines
age in casks made from different types of wood (oak, chestnut, cherry and
others, though oak is increasingly being used), which are not totally filled;
eventually this leads to the build-up of a native yeast called flor, which appears like a white film on
the wine’s surface. The flor eats the
wine’s sugar, and when there is no more sugar left it consumes oxygen and
alcohol to survive, forming acetaldehyde and other precursor molecules that
lead to the formation of new aromatic molecules highly typical of these sherry-like
wines. Vernaccia di Oristano wines vary from light, fresh, dry whites to
immensely complex and oily ones—both dry and off-dry, and pale to dark
amber-colored wines that rival the very best Manzanilla, Amontillado and
Oloroso sherries. Unfortunately, Vernaccia di Oristano is tragically out of
fashion (much like Sicily’s Marsala wines, for example) and it’s a real shame,
as these are some of Italy’s most distinctive wines. 

Recent Vintages in Sardinia



















Sardinia’s 2014 and 2015 vintages
were polar opposites. The overall hot but at times rainy 2015 growing season produced white wines that are less perfumed and
higher in alcohol than usual; generally speaking, I prefer the 2014s. On the
other hand, the hot weather during most of the growth cycle of 2015 yielded red
wines that are especially luscious and powerful, and potentially ageworthy. The
2014 vintage in Italy has always
been plagued by a bad reputation because it was much rainier and cooler than
usual, but weather conditions were less dire on Sardinia, which lies well off
the west coast of Italy, than elsewhere. For the most part, Sardinia’s white
wines are hugely successful in 2014; the reds, on the other hand, can be diluted
or marred by a green streak.<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1476143012921-The+view+at+Flli.+Pala+copy.JPG">The view at Flli. Pala

















While 2015 favored red wines and
2014 whites, in 2013 both colors
fared well. However, not all of the island’s
different wine-producing areas performed equally well, as the western and
southern portions of Sardinia experienced very different weather patterns. The
former recorded much higher than usual rainfall and cooler temperatures, while
the latter basked in generally sunny, warm weather. It appears that Moscato and
Cannonau wines were less successful in 2013, as these grape varieties were affected
by berry shatter and millerandage.
Vermentino, Nasco and Malvasia wines are best in 2013.You Might Also Enjoy <a target="_blank" href="http://vinous.com/articles/argiolas-turriga-looking-back-at-an-italian-icon-2012-1988-aug-2016">Argiolas Turriga – Looking Back at an Italian Icon: 2012-1988</a>, Ian D'Agata,&nbsp;August 2016<a target="_blank" href="http://vinous.com/articles/umbria-new-releases-jun-2016">Umbria – New Releases</a>,&nbsp;Ian D'Agata,&nbsp;June&nbsp;2016 <a target="_blank" href="http://vinous.com/articles/sardinia-sun-sea-sand-and-alluring-wines-jan-2016">Sardinia: Sun, Sea, Sand and Alluring Wines</a>,&nbsp;Ian D'Agata,&nbsp;January 2016

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