Sottimano Barbaresco Cotta 2021 750ml

This wine comes from a 2.8-hectare vineyard purchased by Andrea Sottimano’s father in 1969. Today, the vines are 80 years old and planted in very wide spacing that once had vegetables and artichokes between the rows. The soils are sandy like in Rabajà and Asili. The 2021 Barbaresco Cottá was the last wine in our flight. That’s because it has the biggest concentration and richness. It offers a full bouquet with sweet berry fruits, dried herb and dark spice. It makes a big impact on the palate, and it shows an intense, long-lasting mouthfeel. All of these Sottimano wines are racked into oak sometime after January, and malolactic fermentation proceeds very slowly (finishing at the end of summer or closer to harvest). This gives the wine a reductive character. The aromas here are very delicate and fine with carob, forest fruit, orange rind and blue flower. The tannins are powdery and fine. This beautiful Nebbiolo drinks like a Pinot Noir. Production is 9,000 bottles.

• Country: Italy
• Region: Piedmont
• Appellation: Barbaresco
• Size: 750ml
• Color: Red
• Alcohol by Vol: 15.0%

Varietal

Nebbiolo

The Nebbiolo grape varietal is widely understood to be the fruit responsible for Italy’s finest aged wines. However, its popularity and reliability as a grape which gives out outstanding flavors and aromas has led it to be planted in many countries around the world, with much success. These purple grapes are distinguishable by the fact that they take on a milky dust as they begin to reach maturity, leading many to claim that this is the reason for their unusual name, which means ‘fog’ in Italian. Nebbiolo grapes produce wines which have a wide range of beautiful and fascinating flavors, the most common of which are rich, dark and complex, such as violet, truffle, tobacco and prunes. They are generally aged for many years to balance out their characteristics, as their natural tannin levels tend to be very high.