How can I start writing this blog about Elio? How can Elio’s job be summed up in few lines?
Our visit to Elio Sandri is one of the most fascinating, magical, intriguing and philosophical.
To understand Elio’s uncanny, compelling, lively wines we need to start from the vineyards. Cascina Disa lies at the semi-top of a small hill around 350 meters high just below a well-preserved wood.
All around the house Elio’s plants grow almost untouched for generations. Elio proudly narrates how the difference between his vineyards, and someone else’s lies in the fact that in the last 40-30 years the soil has never been touched, consenting to organic life to find its perfect balance over time. This is exactly Elio’s precious secret, trust nature! There’s no need in overdoing, the task of the conscious vigneron is to observe and act only when required. Consequently, trimming, green harvesting, uncovering the bunches are practices that Elio has always eschewed. And guess what? Wines are just incredible!
Independent thinker as he is, refusing any standardizing protocol, also in the winemaking there are no fixed rules. Elio is what our society is lacking more and more, the action of thinking deriving from the practical experience. Humanity has survived all his life thanks to observation and practice; the smartest intelligence that allow people to survive derived from the experience on the field. This is exactly how Elio operates, hence, his Barolo sometimes ages in cement for a much longer time than that spent in oak; sometimes the maceration is long and sometimes is short; but do not worry everything will be carefully explained by him with the help of his hands with which he draws graphics, riddles, scales with a white chalk on his very old barrels. What makes his wines even more intriguing and magical? Elio always provocatively makes you taste some open bottles left in the corner of his cellars. You sniff from the glass, you get some hints of oxidation, then you sip and wow…wines with lively acidity and a perfectly integrated fruit. Then you find out that bottle was opened for 5 months, and it goes without saying, there’s little amount of SO2 that protect it!
We tasted from the barrels all the new vintages and the wines are just perfect translators of year and terroir. From the sweet, elegant, perfumed and open-kint 2018 to the mighty, lean 2019 with its racy acidity and lively, austere fruit to the luscious 2020 and the incredibly powerful 2021.
Brace yourselves because next vintages from Elio Sandri are just going to be exceptional!
Ps. His Dolcetto and Langhe Nebbiolo are among the finest expressions of these grapes.
