Wine:
Grown in his Barolo Zone vineyards, varying parcels are selected for Barolo or Nebbiolo bottlings depending on stylistic character each vintage. Named “Nebbiolo” for the cool autumn fog (or nebbia) and late ripening. 40 year-old vines cling to a steep-sloping, northeast-facing Langhe hillside producing small clusters, planted densely at only 28 inch spacing. Winery notes: “Beautiful bouquet with flowers, herbs, tobacco, currants, earth and a touch of cedar. Velvety palate of licorice, bitter dark chocolate and sweet spices.”

Winery:
In view of the Swiss Alps from the cool Piedmont region of northwest Italy, the Sandri family farms this foggy area of steep hillside vineyards, east of Barolo in the hamlet of Monforte d’Alba. Grapes have been grown there for millennia, and since the late 1800s by the Sandri family. Originally selling their grapes to other wineries, Elio  Sandri decided to keep all fruit for bottling his own wines, amounting to a tiny annual production of 2,000 cases of Barolo, out of the 330,000 cases (.25%) of Barolo produced annually. A Traditionalist in winemaking and growing, the house style rewards bottle age, and is released later than most in the area. Antonio Galloni: “The wines are rich, potent and loaded with structure, which means they will appeal to most with classically leaning palates. More than anything else, though, I find these wines to have true soul and a fragile sense of humanity that makes them absolutely compelling and distinctive.” Recently discovered by Antonio Galloni, and widely revered by sommeliers as a new cult producer in the Piemonte, the wines are now harder to get and more expensive with each release.

Winemaking:
Unmoved by New World stylistic influences, traditionalist Elio Sandri makes wine with minimal intervention, believing the natural process best reflects their unique terroir. Grapes are hand-picked at night, native-yeast fermented slowly and gently over months in the cold underground cellar, minimizing extraction first in Stainless tanks, then in concrete tanks before aging in neutral wooden Botte tanks using no new oak. While the Barolo is whole-cluster fermented, Sandri’s only modern winemaking acquiescence is to destem the Nebbiolo and Dolcetto. The very limited Barolos are fermented directly in decades-old wood Botte tanks, then bottle aged for many years, exceeding the 3 year bottle age requirement for Barolo. Following his personal approach to winemaking, all bottles are hand-labeled.

Vineyards:
Sandri’s entire vineyard is in the Barolo Zone on a steep, cooler east-facing Perno hillside, opposite Gaja’s Barolo on the warmer West-facing Sierra Langhe. His cooler hillside means later harvesting at lower brix than at Gaja’s warmer site. A non-interventionist, he uses Certified Organic Farming, and no sprays and no plowing (the hillside is too steep for a tractor). Wild herbs grow between rows in different parcels, creating aromatics that add complexity to wines from each parcel. He thins the crop in the spring (not at veraison), removing the larger flowers and leaving what will become smaller clusters. Vines are super-tightly spaced at .7 meters apart (28 inches), for 60 kilometers of linear vine rows. He makes leaf canopy adjustments for the cool and often foggy setting, and pruned to one cluster per shoot.