Valdisole
2017
Pnoi
Nebbiolo
Piedmont, Italy

While taking cooking classes as a hobby, Giuseppe discovered his interest in pairing food and wine and got deeper into the world of wine. And with a lot of luck, he found an abandoned Nebbiolo vineyard on a classifieds website. Soon he started making wine with this half a hectare only for his family and friends. And while taking a sommelier course, he met Kyriaki from Greece while she was studying engineering in Italy. Together they hit it off and are now partners in wine and love. They have professionalized it all and farm 4 hectares in their own way of natural agriculture. Kyriaki came up with interesting names for the wines with her Greek roots as she is responsible for branding, and as Giuseppe points out, she’s better at blending wines.

This is Barolo how it was originally consumed. Back in the day, they used only a short maceration time on Nebbiolo, as there was no easy way to deal with the astringency of the tannins. Only later, when long barrel aging was introduced, Barolo tasted like the wine sold today. Poi means spirit in Greek, and this is what they wanted to capture. After the short maceration, the wine is aged for 9 months in three parts: one third in chestnut, one third in clay, and the last third in oak barrels. It is then blended and spends another three months in the bottle. The outcome is a masterpiece so light with rose and violet aroma but warming with caramel and nuttiness. This continues in the mouth with small salted cherries and popcorn. With its sweet kick and smaller bottle size, it can be easily consumed without food or with some sweeter pastry.

This wine is part of
 
Volume 32: The Skinny Edition