Visiting the Antoniotti’s family home and vineyard is a special treat. The house has was built in the 1700’s and wine has been produced there ever since. It is like a museum exhibition about how wine has been made in the past: grapes are harvested by hand in the adjacent vineyard, then channeled through old grated windows into the family’s basement where they ferment in ancient concrete vats that are built into the walls. There are filters, no modern machinery and almost everything is done by hand, using gravity as the primary force that drives wine from point A to B. It’s fascinating. In tasting overtly “old school” wines like Antoniotti, I often wonder if all the modernization and mechanization one sees in contemporary wine cellars is in vain. After all, I think there is a soulfulness and depth that sometimes gets lost when everything is measured, controlled and touched by machinery instead of human hands.
One thing I also want to stress about today’s delicious wine is its pronounced soil character—this is a true terroir wine. The village of Bramaterra is known for having unique volcanic and iron rich soils. Of friend of mine mentioned that in a recent visit to this area during a rainstorm, he saw the nearby Sesia river tinted a bright, rusty hue of orange from all the minerals in the soil. While many surrounding villages have sand and gravel-dominated soils, Bramaterra’s denser, more mineral rich soils impart a distinct masculinity and spice to the wines. This is one of my favorite expressions of Nebbiolo and I think this bottle is an important learning device for those who wish to better understand how noble grapes like Nebbiolo interact with various soils. Still, I don’t want to distract from what matters most—i.e. that this wine is just irresistibly mouthwatering and wonderful.
In the glass, the 2010 Antoniotti Bramaterra has a garnet red core moving to orange and amber hues on the rim. The aromatics are floral and lifted showing notes of dried red cherries, red plums, a myriad of dried flowers, tar, red tobacco, tomato leaf, exotic spice and crushed rocks with perfect balance and poise. The palate is medium in body and layered with intense fine grain tannins which are delicately interwoven with flavors similar to the nose. This wine gets better with air—it needs it—so please the wine be for at least 30 minutes in a decanter before serving into Burgundy stems at about 60 degrees, just above cellar temperature. This wine is beginning to blossom and is gorgeous now, but the best wines from Bramaterra really hit a sweet spot at about a decade of age, so I would highly recommend putting as many away as possible. Frankly, at this price for me it is a no brainer to put away a few bottles for the future—trust me that you will not regret it. For a classic pairing, prepare a simple pasta recipe with wild mushrooms.
This recipe by Chef Jonathan Waxman is a great guide and the end result will depend on the quality of mushrooms so look for something special in order to elevate this magical dish.
