Castello Conti 2020 Spanna (Nebbiolo), Colline Novaresi DOC

Item Number: 17495

UPC: 0-811644011983

Country: Italy
Region: Piedmont
Sub Region: Alto Piemonte
Appellation/AVA: Colline Novaresi DOC
Estate Grown Wine: No
Vintage: 2020
Grape(s): 100% Nebbiolo (Spanna)
Type: Wine - Red
Bottle Size: 750 ml
Pack: 12
Closure: Cork
Alc by Vol(%): 13
Viticulture: Certified Organic
Soil Type: Volcanic porphyry, iron-rich limestone-clay, quartz, and sand
Case Production: 167

Spanna 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.

Vineyard Notes: The vineyard from which this wine is produced belongs to a friend of Elena and Paola Conti; it is farmed organically, according to the sisters’ specifications, and a manual harvest is overseen and conducted by the Conti sisters themselves.

Winemaking Notes: Spanna is destemmed and pressed in a vertical basket press. Fermentation is spontaneous with indigenous yeast. Grapes macerate on their skins for two weeks in an open vat with daily pump overs. The wine is then put in steel vats for a couple of weeks to facilitate the separation of gross lees. The Spanna ages in a combination of smaller and larger Slavonian oak botti for two years. Malolactic fermentation occurs naturally. The wine is filtered in the bottling phase with coarse filter pads and added sulfites is kept to a bare minimum.

Tasting Notes: 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. Its tannins, while certainly not shy, serve to augment this impression of verticality with their lip-smacking freshness. This is mountain Nebbiolo at its finest and most articulate.

94pts (2021 Vintage) Vinous 6/1/2023
“The 2021 Spanna is another beguiling wine from Conti. It offers up a heady mix of crushed red berry fruit, spice, orange peel, chalk, mint and white pepper. This is far from an easygoing wine. If anything, the 2021 over delivers big time. Readers will find a savory, structured Nebbiolo that captures the personality of the appellation eloquently.”