- Castellero Nebbiolo DOC 2001

Colour / Colore:

Deep, intense ruby colour, with noticeable tawny highlights.

Aroma / Profumo:

Rich aromas of black cherries, violets and game with scents of old roses fill the glass.

Palate / Gusto:

This Nebbiolo is a full-bodied wine packed with ripe, black cherries, game and truffles that emanate strongly on the palate. The wine has great structure, with a complexity of rich fruit and game flavours that mingle well with noticeable, but ripe, Nebbiolo tannins, and lead to a supple, spicy, lingering finish.

Ageing potential / Invecchiamento:

The 2000 Castellero is still a young wine and will be at its best if left to age carefully in the bottle for five to ten years, at which stage the tannins will have softened more and the rich fruit and game characters will have developed fully.

Vineyard / Vigneto:

Fruit for this Nebbiolo comes from the Castellero Vineyard in the Roero region. This is a south-facing vineyard, with chalky-white, clay soils, growing 20 year old vines that produced 6 Tonnes per hectare in 2000. The vines are trained in the classic vertical shoot positioning manner using cane pruning. They are relatively low vigour ensuring high fruit exposure to the sun.

Wine making / Vinificazione:

After an exceptionally hot and dry season Nebbiolo grapes in perfect condition where hand-harvested, de-stemmed and then crushed to two small fermenters. They were carefully hand-plunged every couple of hours during the first few days of fermentation, with less frequent plunging for the last two days. This ensures good colour and flavour extraction, but avoids over extraction of the abundant Nebbiolo tannins. The wine was drained off at dryness, and the skins transferred by hand to a small press. After pressing the wine was settled for two days, and then racked to a total of seven used French oak barriques where it aged for 18 months. It was then racked from oak and gently natural egg white fined. The abundance of alcohol and tannin gave us reason to minimize the filtration before bottling.

Analysis at harvest / Analisi sull'uva:

Analysis on wine / Analisi sul vino: