Description
Deep, intense ruby colour with noticeable tawny highlights. This is a wine packed with vibrant aromas of black cherries, violets and game. On the palate the wine has great structure and shows complex rich fruit, truffle and game flavours and ripe Nebbiolo tannins. Long, spicy finish.
Producer Details
Araldica is Piemonte's largest and most progressive co-operative yet retains a small, family run company feel, thanks to the inspired guidance of winemaker/manager Claudio Manera (whose father Livio was the co-op's first winemaker in the fifties) and his wife Lella, also a winemaker and in charge of Quality Control. 80% of production is bottled (an extraordinarily high percentage for a large co-operative) at the company's headquarters in the Monferrato hills, home of the old cellars and a new winery, operating since September 2000. This is complimented by two estates, each with it's own vinification cellars, La Battistina in Gavi (where Araldica is the region's largest vineyard owner) and Il Cascinone. Claudio believes that effective management can preserve that most important concern for the customer - value for money: "Our intention has never been to follow an idle dream of making a great wine that is then impossible to find or difficult to afford. Our broader ambition has been to provide a range that is both understandable and accessible. Quite simply, wine for drinking and enjoying."
In the Vineyard
Araldica have 9 member growers with vineyards in Barbaresco, covering 8 hectares in the communes of Treiso and Neive. soil is clay/chalk and training on low guyot trellis, plant density 4,000 vines/ha. Manual harvest takes place in early October, yield 6 to 7 T/ha.
In the Winery
Nebbiolo grapes are hand-harvested, de-stemmed and then crushed to four small fermenters, for 12 days, with daily pumping-over. This ensures good colour and flavour extraction, but avoids over extraction of the abundant Nebbiolo tannins. The wine is drained off at dryness and the skins transferred to a small press. After pressing the wine is settled for two days, and then racked to oak casks where it is aged for 2 years. It is then racked from oak and gently natural egg white fined. Another 6 months maturation in bottle is completed before release. Average production 48,000.
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