For her ‘La Foia’ bottling, pulled from the Arborina Cru, an outstanding south-facing vineyard in La Morra, Nadia ferments and long macerates her fruit in giant Slavonian grandi botti. There is no ‘technology’ per se: no glycol temperature controlled steel tanks, no roto-fermenters, no synthetic yeast additions or filtration. The only technical trick Nadia employs is rolling her giant oak barrels out into the snow in January for a night which naturally clarifies the wine; otherwise, everything is 100% old school. Fittingly, it is aged for more than 24 months in botti, bottled unfined and unfiltered, then aged 12 months in bottle before release. The resulting wine is a master class in Arborina Barolo: achingly delicate dark cherry fruit, alongside a dense bouquet of dried rose, Taiwanese red tea, and black truffle aromas. It delivers tons of flavor intensity and character, doling out raspberry compote, blood orange, mint, and Ceylon leaf on the fine-boned, refreshing palate. Nadia’s 2018 is truly singing right now, a Barolo for those who look for detail and nuance over bombast, and for those appreciative of earlier drinking appeal (not a bad thing!) Drink now thru 2030.
In addition to her disarmingly warm and chatty manner, Nadia Curto is a respected, veteran cellar talent, and, as niece of Barolo moderniste legend Elio Altare, born into multi-generation ‘royalty’ in La Morra, Barolo. Nadia and her 85-year-old father Marco organically farm a single hillside, which fortunately includes a significant percentage of the vineyard Arborina, a site which ranks among the top vineyards in all of Barolo. Most of La Morra is dominated by clay soils and thus produces soft, round, young drinking Barolo; Arborina on the other hand has a mixture of limestone-rich and sandy soils which impart firm minerality, tension, bright aromas, and a sense of lift that is distinct in the village. Depending on the specific bottling, Nadia’s style either resembles her uncle Elio's modernist precision and instant gratification – as with her ‘La Arborinia’ – or the more antique, neutral botti character of her father’s wines – as with the long-aged ‘La Foia’ bottling here, obviously our personal favorite. As such Nadia herself occupies a fascinating place within the (thankfully subsiding/less pertinent) ‘Barolo Wars’ dichotomy; but regardless of cellar technique, the OCD-grade perfection of her wines is undeniable, with everything full-on organic, seeing native yeast ferments and low sulfur additions, and made in the small basement of her house which sits right at the base of Arborina.