2018 Castelllo Conti Colline Novaresi DOC Spanna

From: Piedmont, Italy Varietal: Nebbiolo Tasting Notes: Spanna, of course, is the local term for Nebbiolo, and Conti’s is as proudly regionally distinctive as the word itself—a wine that could only come from within the reach of Monte Rosa’s long shadows. The vineyard from which this wine is produced belongs to a friend of Elena and Paola; it is farmed organically, according to the sisters’ specifications, and harvest is overseen and conducted by the Contis themselves. The Spanna (pure unblended Nebbiolo), like the Boca, is aged in a combination of smaller and larger used wood—in this case, for two years—and sulfur here, too, is kept to a bare minimum and applied only at bottling. If the Boca is driven more by its titanic minerality, the Spanna is built on a sense of kinetic energy—a wine of lift and drive rather than power. Fruits here are pitched higher and complemented by a more vertically oriented layering of spices and mountain herbs, and its tannins, while certainly not shy, serve