Currá Barbaresco DOCG 2021

Wine description for Currá Barbaresco DOCG 2021 by Sottimano

Andrea Sottimano is one of the quietly patient figures of Barbaresco. While others have long since pressed off, his Nebbiolo remains on the skins for up to forty, sometimes sixty days. The Currá is the result of this slowness: a wine from 55- to 70-year-old vines in the small cru south-west of Neive, which rested for 24 to 30 months in used Burgundian pièces – only fifteen per cent new wood, just enough for structure, never for dominance.

Colour & appearance

Transparent ruby red, clear and luminous in the glass – despite all its density, the wine displays the noble transparency inherent to great Nebbiolo.

Nose

Dark-fruited and concentrated: an entire keyboard of dark cherries, accompanied by mulberries and blackberries. Beneath lie bitter chocolate, dark tobacco and a touch of leather, balanced by gentle spices such as black cardamom and allspice. Even in its youth, a little powerhouse.

Palate

Powerful and dense on entry. The tannin is firm and chewy – you almost feel you could chew the wine. Savoury, austere notes and a highly refined bitterness frame the ruby-shimmering fruit firmly, while a ripe, brightly luminous acidity drives the wine forward and lends it tension.

Finish

Long, dark and serious, with lingering cherry fruit, a fine bitter note and the promise of further development. At its best after three to five years of bottle age – yet even today, served in large glasses, it is an experience.

Terroir & origin

The Currà vineyard site lies south-west of Neive on limestone- and clay-rich soils with a south-westerly aspect. The old vines, largely planted by Rino Sottimano in the 1970s and 80s, deliver low yields and represent the extract-rich, long-lived side of the estate.

Grape variety & vinification

Pure Nebbiolo, selectively hand-harvested. Spontaneous fermentation with wild yeasts, long maceration of up to sixty days, malolactic fermentation in cask when the cellar warms up naturally in spring. Ageing in used pièces, bottled unfiltered and unfined.

Food recommendations

A wine for a substantial table: braised beef shoulder in Barolo, tagliatelle with truffle, rack of lamb with rosemary or aged Parmigiano Reggiano. Wild boar ragù, too, finds an equal counterpart within its dense tannic architecture.

Special features

The estate has farmed its vines under organic certification for over forty years – without herbicides or synthetic fertilisers, back when this was still a minority position in the 1970s. Among the estate’s five single-vineyard Barbareschi, Currá always stands for the most tightly wound, most extract-rich and longest-lived expression – a Barbaresco with the stamina that Sottimano has elevated to a principle.