Cottá, Barbaresco DOCG 2017

Wine description for Cottá Barbaresco DOCG 2017 by Sottimano

Colour & appearance

Ruby red with bright reflections – clear and youthful in the glass.

Nose

Layered like puff pastry: cherry and red berries, accompanied by herbal notes of marjoram and thyme, a fine woody spice leaning towards sandalwood and vetiver. In the background, black tea, dark tobacco and dried cherries.

Palate

Taut, almost chewable tannins meet a vibrant spine of acidity – the typical Sottimano bite. A vertical drinking flow rather than broad opulence, dense and linear in structure.

Finish

Long and spicy, with lingering cherry fruit and a fine, grippy tannin finish.

Terroir & origin

The Cottà grows around the estate in Neive – of the family’s five single vineyards, it yields the most fruit-driven wines, with notes of red and black fruit. Rino Sottimano planted most of the vines himself in the 1970s and 1980s; many are now fifty to sixty years old.

Grape variety & vinification

Pure Nebbiolo, fermented spontaneously with wild yeasts. Andrea Sottimano leaves the must on the skins for up to forty, sometimes sixty days – long after others would have pressed off. The wine is then aged in used Burgundian pièces, with only about fifteen per cent new wood. Unfiltered, unfined.

Food recommendations

Cassoulet of white beans in tomato sugo with thyme and sage, gurnard on radicchio with speck and balsamic vinegar, or classically duck with red cabbage and dumplings – dishes with depth that can stand up to its tannic structure.

Special features

The estate has been organically certified for over forty years – without herbicides or synthetic fertilisers, long before this became common practice in the region. The extremely long maceration gives the Cottà its dense, almost tactile structure, combined with a lively freshness.