Regional profile: Sulcis, Sardinia
In recent years, the producers of this island DOC have upended their focus on quantity to create wines that communicate an incredible sense of place. The unexpected star of this shift, explains Susan Hulme MW, is the sensitive and intense Carignano grape
Sardinia’s trendy calling card variety is currently Vermentino – its crunchy, vibrant wines with greenapple and lime flavours make it Italy’s answer to Sauvignon Blanc, and probably the best known and most popular Sardinian wine. But perhaps Sardinia’s bestkept vinous secret is Carignano, a characterful, distinctive, terroir-driven black variety that achieves its best expression on the sandy southwestern tip of this large Mediterranean island, in an area known as Sulcis.
It was probably the Phoenicians, founders of the ancient Sulci on the neighbouring island of Sant’Antioco, who first brought vines to Sardinia. Ampelographers believe that Carignano originated in Cariñena in Spain’s Aragón region, where it is also known as Mazuelo, or in Catalonia as Samsó. In France and the US, it becomes Carignan and
Carignane. Nowadays, with more than 80,000ha, it is the 11th most cultivated variety in the world.
There are only 1,700ha of Carignano under cultivation in the Sulcis area, but it has such a strong identity here. Old-vine Carignano has an amazing capacity to resist the salty breezes in such a hot and increasingly dry climate. In fact, it thrives here like almost nowhere else; it is late to ripen and likes a warm, dry climate with plenty of light. Also, the Mistral winds from the northwest, which blow through this part of the island especially from April until October, give relief from the heat.
If yields are too high, Carignano tannins can be tough and chewy. In Sulcis, old vines ranging from 50-100 years old stand on their own ungrafted roots in sandy soils and are trained with the low-bush alberello method. So yields are very low, typically 1kg per vine, producing intense wines that are a perfect snapshot of the terroir. The dried-cherry, liquorice and sometimes Port-like notes reflect the heat and dryness of the climate, the wildmyrtle and thyme notes evoke the macchia mediterranea vegetation that surrounds the vineyards. The fine-textured tannins remind us of the fine sandy soils, and even the tang of the sea breeze is present on the savoury, salty finish of these wines.
Quality shift
In Sardinia in the 1960s, as in many other regions, quantity was more important than quality. The key producers were the cooperatives, which fulfilled a necessary role in allowing grape growers to earn a living.
In the 1980s, the focus began to shift towards maximising quality. Cantina Santadi’s director Antonello Pilloni began working with the famous Antinori oenologist and 2011 Decanter Hall of Fame award recipient
Giacomo Tachis, who created the iconic wines of Sassicaia, Tignanello and Solaia. Tachis’ studies in Bordeaux with Emile Peynaud gave him the skills to work on tannin refinement and quality. He also believed in producing wines with a strong local identity. From this point, the belief in Sardinian Carignano’s potential spread.
When I met Tachis in 1995 at his home outside Florence, he was still bursting with enthusiasm about Sardinian Carignano. In 2002, he went into partnership with Marchese Incisa della Rocchetta (of Sassicaia fame) and Cantina Santadi to create the Agricola Punica winery. Their philosophy, according to commercial manager Massimo Podda, was to make ‘Sardinian wines with an international breath’, predominantly from Carignano but including Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot or Syrah for broader appeal.
Around this time, many Sardinian grapegrowers started to move away from simply selling their grapes to the co-ops, and began to bottle their own wine. Enrico Esu, whose family had for decades supplied grapes to other producers, is representative of the younger generation that has taken over family estates (see ‘Italy’s young guns’, p22). Esu is committed to preserving the traditional approach towards growing old-vine
Carignano. It is very much a hands-off approach: his vines are given no nutrients, they are unirrigated and are grown free of pesticides; his wine is made in 1,000-litre open tanks, then aged in stainless steel before being bottled unfiltered and unfined.
Recently in Sardinia, there has been a reduction in yields. At Agricola Punica in
2002, planting density climbed from 4,000 to 5,600 vines per hectare. This reduced the quantity of fruit per vine while keeping the overall yield the same, in order to get 1kg of grapes per vine. The winery also conducts green harvesting and picks by hand (which takes six times as long as machine picking) in order to increase quality. These techniques are typical of the fine-tuning and attention to detail in the vineyard that quality-minded producers are now focused upon. At Cantina Mesa, they spray vines with a type of clay that protects the grapes and leaves from sunburn and delays the increase in sugar levels. This gives a better balance between phenolic and physical ripening.