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, 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.