2018 La Capuccina, Nebbiolo, Faren, Colline Novaresi DOC, Alto Piemonte, Italy.
The 2018 La Cappuccino Fare Colline Novaresi, 100% Nebbiolo, shows off a classic old school rustic charm with a slightly austere start and dusty tannins, but really gets better and better with air and time in the glass, delivering an engaging and pleasing performance, especially with food. The medium bodied bodied palate revolves around pure Nebbiolo fruit, with a core of earthy mulberry, tart cherry, dried cranberry, damson plum and faint orange notes along with wilted roses, cedar, minty herb, mineral tones, anise and a touch of tobacco leaf. Now led by Raffaella Zanetta, after the death of her husband, La Cappuccino winery, part of a sustainable farm and restaurant in Alto Piemonte in the Colline Novaresi DOC district, focuses on traditional native varietals and organic farming practices. All wines here at La Cappuccino, including this beautiful Faren Nebbiolo, are fermented spontaneously with native yeasts and handmade with nonintervention winemaking methods. Looking for elegance and transparency in the wines and terroir driven flavors the wines are are aged only in large Slavonian oak “botti” much the same as old school Barolo wines are. According to the importer Raffaella, with her small team, and the aid of her vineyard manager and cellar master, is carrying forward the late Gianluca’s vision of crafting true native varietal offerings, looking to make refined and authentic Alto Piemonte wines. The region, with its complex mix of depleted silt, sand, clay, glacial and alluvial rocky soils, has chilly nights and a long growing season, all of which adds up to some exciting Nebbiolo wines.
La Capuccina, based in a 14th Century farmhouse in the remote upper Piemonte village of Cureggio, is a self contained farm, restaurant and vineyard that was founded by late Gianluca Zanetta, who in 2020 sadly and tragically passed away recently, in 2000 and has become world renown and critically acclaimed for each of its parts, as well as the whole, especially as experienced in person, from what I hear. That said, I have only had the wines, which were discovered and brought to the United states by famous wine importer Giuseppe Lo Cascio and his partner Iacopo Di Teodoro of Lucidity Wine Merchants. Zanetta and his wife Raffaella, who bravely has carried on had dreamed of doing a life project together, became direct farmers, breeders, wine producers and restaurateurs with great passion, which has led to, even without Gianluca, some remarkable successes, after taking over this old family property and creating what he called a proper agritourism estate. Today La Capuccina has grown from a humble mom and pop’s place to having fifteen full-time employees, adding new parcels of land for the animals and for the crops, all to satisfy the overwhelming demand, in is what otherwise would be called a sleepy less traveled part of the country. The Alto Piemonte area is a modern hot spot for Italian wines and the Colline Novaresi, in the hills north of Novara and situated between the Seccia and Ticino rivers, was granted its full DOC status in 1994, with red wines that are led by Spanna, the local name for Nebbiolo. This area can also have labeled Whites and Rosé, made with indigenous grapes, but is mostly known for the DOCG red wines, such as Gattinara, Boca and Gemme, and it is definitely a place to explore for wine and food lovers, especially with wines like this on offer.
($28 Est.) 92 Points, grapelive