For the ‘Ex Alba,’ 100% Trebbiano grapes are hand-harvested before undergoing a very extended maceration (45 days!) in old oak barriques. Spontaneous fermentation is kickstarted with only the help of native yeasts, and the wine is bottled unfined, unfiltered, and with no additional SO2. Deep golden-amber with apricot hues, this opens with tangerine peel, dried apricot, passion fruit, and lychee with subtle honey and herbaceous undertones. At first sip, there’s tangy acidity – it’s a little prickly on the tongue – with candied ginger meets stone fruit and salinity. The textured mouthfeel from extended maceration leads to a savory, bone-dry, persistent finish, ending with a hint of sweet smoke and minerality. This is a seriously built and food- friendly orange wine but there’s more than a little rustic irreverence to it; think stewed orange fruit kombucha meets sage incense – pop it open, don’t take yourself too seriously, and be the hippie you want to see in the world.
Alberto and Claudia Carretti are the brains and brawn behind the Podere Paradolo estate, whose wines have garnered a cult-status among the natural wine community over the years. They work in Serravelle, a small town in the Parma hills, where they endeavor to create modern wines while maintaining ancient influence and reverence – so goes the ethos that undergirds the extended macerations and long aging of both their red and white-wine grapes. Purchased in 1972 and converted to viticulture and winemaking in 1989, Alberto’s vision of a rigorously low-intervention venture has guided each and every step along the way, capturing the history and natural bounty of the region here, at the edge of the Po River valley and the Ligurian Apennines, where a good diurnal range and cooling breezes imbue the grapes with exceptionally complex aromas. Long since certified organic and using biodynamic practices, the couple tends to 5 hectares of local variety grapes planted to clay-limestone soils; in the cellar there are only native fermentations, no filtering nor fining, and zero SO2.