Sottimano - Cottá Barbaresco 2016
As we approach Christmas, we're enjoying a bottle of Barbaresco Cottá 2016 from Sottimano from Piedmont.
Christmas is approaching with great strides, it’s cold outside, and it gets dark almost immediately after sunrise. And there are wines that work particularly well now and that you wouldn’t want to open when it’s 40 degrees under the roof. This is such a wine, or at least I hope it will be. Barbaresco hails from Piedmont in northwestern Italy and is made entirely from Nebbiolo. Just like Barolo, except the vineyards are located a bit lower, the microclimate is different, and so are the soils. As a result, Barbaresco is generally said to be somewhat lighter, more playful, lower in tannins, and more accessible than Barolo. How accurate this is, I don’t know, as this is the first bottle of Barbaresco I will have ever drunk. And even after a sample size of one, I won’t be tempted to make any statements that sound universally valid. Much like Barolo, Barbaresco is not exactly cheap, and this single bottle is one of those 40%-off, Freiheit-Vinothek-clears-the-warehouse purchases. Otherwise, it probably wouldn’t be sitting here on the table in front of me. Sottimano acquired their first vineyards in the Cottá site in the 1970s, the vineyards from which the grapes for this bottle also come. Since the 1990s, they have abstained from using artificial fertilizers and chemical-synthetic sprays, and the wines have been spontaneously fermented right from the very beginning. After fermentation and maceration, the wine rests on the lees for a year and then matures for at least another year in small used barrels.
Right after uncorking, the wine seems grainy and rugged. Both in the nose and in the mouth. This calms down slowly with air, but the wine is young. Honestly, I expected this, as one often reads that more serious wines from Nebbiolo should first be put away for decades, which obviously hasn’t happened here. Curiosity. But we have time, and there’s plenty of air in the room. The wine is really intense, there’s red and beautiful fruit, but it’s immediately pushed aside by an even larger portion of ethereal notes. At times, it’s more reminiscent of a cold remedy bath than red wine. Eucalyptus, menthol, that direction. And then comes vanilla. But the more often you put your nose in the glass, the more the fruit captivates you. You want to smell again and again, and each time it’s slightly different, more cherry here, more berries there, sometimes a bit sweeter, sometimes spicier. Always beautiful. When drinking, there’s considerable resistance in the wine. The tannin is not limited to the tongue, it also clings to the gums and palate, really everywhere. But it no longer seems as coarse-grained as with the first sip, it has become much finer. And then comes juicy acidity and again this ethereal freshness, before the tannins once again gain the upper hand and dry the tongue. It doesn’t take much imagination to recognize that what you have in the glass is quite grand. And indeed, also quite young.
The wine becomes quieter overnight. There’s beeswax, dark cherry, lighter berries, wood, and leather. The vanilla is much quieter, the ethereal notes almost completely gone. For a moment, I think that the tannins are no longer so gripping and that the acidity has taken the lead. The next few sips quickly correct this idea, though, and the tannin rebuilds its home on the tongue. Nevertheless, it never loses its freshness and it never becomes strenuous or unpleasant. At no point do I feel that the wine might be too young or regret opening it. Not easy drinking, but definitely a great experience. Those with more patience than I might have even more fun in 5 or 10 years. This doesn’t make me sad. This enormous complexity, the change with every smell, is unchanged on the second evening. There’s cassis, some smoke, earthy spice, and the wood. Still, every minute in the air brings the wine a step further in its development and opens another door somewhere in the aroma. And you still need time to smell your way through this depth.
Two small glasses full make it out of interest into a third evening. The development has continued there as well. Less fruit now, earthier, more down-to-earth, and perhaps now really softer. The wine will have many, many years ahead of it. But those who have more than one bottle and a few evenings of time, or who are simply as impatient as I am, will have a lot of enjoyment from the bottle even now. This is one of those bottles that stays in your head for a long time, one of those special bottles, and indeed the perfect wine for dark, cold evenings at the end of the year. There aren’t enough warehouse clearances for me to want to stock up on it, and even then it’s still not an inexpensive wine. But when the glass is sitting in front of you like that, you can understand the fascination of these wines and play with the idea of delving deeper into Piedmont faster than you’d like. For now, though, that remains a figment of the imagination.