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| Marziano puts an un-sufured cork in it |
A wine I wasn’t expecting to try, as I started my lap around the Langhe, was the ZEROSOLFITI Langhe Rosso of
Marziano Abbona. After a stellar lineup of Arneis, Viognier (don’t cringe - there’s a story - for later), a Dogliani DOCG Cru, a Barbera from Alba and a host of uber-delicious Nebbiolo wines from Barolo and Barbaresco, Marziano’s daughter pulled out this red wine. “We only make a little of it, to see how far we can try to take the wine without sulfur.” She explained the rites: painstakingly and excruciatingly rigorous denial of sulfuring in the vineyards, in crushing and wine-making, in the aging and in the bottling, including in the barrels and the bottles and even going so far as to wash the vines off after copper preparations. Wow, I’m tired writing this, let alone all the work that went into it.
“We also are using no pesticides, no herbicides, nothing from the outside, except the air and the water and the sun and the soil. And the moon - we love the moon,” Chiara purred when she mentioned the lunar satellite.
I get it, this is wine au natural.
Almost.
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| ♫ Martin, Martin, he was a friend of mine ♫ |
The result is a head-turning beauty of a wine – focused, lean and not at all mean. It’s a pretty wine, not all hairy-armpitted up. Do ya feel me dawg? This is a wine Randall Grahm would love.
“The next thing” I told daughter Chiara “will your dad be putting his Viognier in an amphora or his Nebbiolo in a concrete egg?”
“No,” she said, “no amphora, no Nomblot, just the moon.”
It reminded me of
another winemaker in the Langhe who rallied his forces against Berlusconi and barriques.
Maybe this is the new rebel yell: “No amphora, no Nomblot, just the moon.”
Sign me up.
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| Marziano Abbona and daughter Chiara pausing after a long harvest period |
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