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. Deceptively light in its mid-weight structure, it still 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 2017 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.