Carignano del Sulcis Doc Superiore | 2019
Download Technical Data SheetSuperior
To obtain Superiore you need the fruits of at least 2 plants since a careful selection of the best plants and bunches is carried out in the field. They are then transported to the cellar, in small shaded boxes to protect them from the sun and before proceeding with vinification, a selection of the best grapes is carried out.
Vinification
Destemming of the bunches leaving the berry whole and intact. Fermentation in stainless steel tanks at a controlled temperature of 27-28° C with the addition of about 20% of whole bunch of unstemmed grapes, 3-5% of pied de cuve with indigenous yeasts (prepared 1 week before from the same plants). Maceration for 15/20 days with careful use of the pumping over and delestage technique. Aging in French wooden tonneaux, 2nd pass fine grain, for 17/8 months, aging for a further 6 months in steel barrels and final aging in the bottle for at least 6 months.
- Alcohol conte: 14%
- Serving temperature: 16-18° C
- Residual sugar: gr/l 10,56
- Total acidity: g/l 5,8
- Production: 1500 bottle
It's surprising on the nose with a scent of medicinal herbs and balsamic notes typical of the Mediterranean scrub that grows on the sand dunes. You sink your nose and wonder if what you smell is mint. No, it's myrtle, we are in Sardinia. A wine that releases the scents you smell in the air as soon as you land on the island: mastic, cistus, rosemary, helichrysum and above all myrtle and iodine. All enclosing a ripe, enveloping, silky red fruit. The mouth starts right there. From a silkiness that makes the sip soft, warm. But then, to support the palate, a breath of savory freshness. The sea is there, really close. And you feel everything.
Terroir
Superiore is the son of the sands of the Calasetta dunes, where monumental vines unique in the world have stood for a hundred years or more, with ungrafted roots on sea sand, surrounded by myrtles, mastic trees and junipers.
From the dawn of time, on this minor island, the small vineyards have been worked and regenerated with ancient techniques that have been handed down from father to son and which allow, with the offshoot on vines trained as head-trained , to keep the plants alive for centuries. It is impossible to establish the age of the plants from which the Superiore grapes are harvested, certainly 90 years, perhaps centuries…
Centuries-old plants that incredibly manage to survive on soils that defining sandy is an understatement: the percentage of sand reaches 99%. Sand is a soil that starves and thirsts the vines, the yield is inevitably very low, but it has saved them from the terrible plague of phylloxera.
Tasting Superiore, one immediately perceives the natural and light sapidity of the sea which is located a few hundred meters away. Sea that also regulates excessive heat and stabilizes the climate by lowering temperatures in the vineyards "in collaboration" with its greatest ally: the mistral that blows powerfully and constantly throughout the year. Without their "air conditioning" there would not be the slow and perfect ripening of the grapes that give life to Superiore.
Radiated all year round by the Sardinian sun, Carignano vines from which Superiore is obtained, suffer from thirst and the heat, are whipped by the strong and salty mistral winds, suffer from hunger on sandy soils: here are the ingredients to make a great wine or as G. Tachis said "An exceptional wine".