Cantina D’Arcy Barolo Preda 2020

If your’e looking for oomph and stuffing and bigness, well, perhaps Cantina D’Arcy isn’t for you. Everyone is referencing Burgundy in the same breath as D’Arcy, and although the almost unbelievable elegance, beauty and ethereal nature of the wines leads your intellectual side to another place, the smell, flavours, textures, soul, the very heart of the matter is Barolo. So let’s forget about Burgundy, it’s hard I know, and think, dream only of Barolo. A wine that benefits from an excellent glass, and time if you have it. Make time. The initial reticence evolves into a sumptuous display of mixed flowers, Asian spices, red fruits, fresh earth and some darker notes, that will become more apparent with bottle age. Medium bodied, yet all the elements dialed up. Lithe, fleshy and mineral, a silky flow leading into a caress of cashmere. Utterly breathtaking, so beautiful and pure are its flavours and textures. A wine and a producer for the ages. Norris at Waters Wine Co

Preda is nestled between Cannubi and Vignane at the end of the Bussia Valley. Myers’ parcel faces east at the top of the hill, where the thin Sant’Agata soils are laced with a high portion of active lime. It’s this combination of exposure and rocky soils that, in part, allows him to craft such an aromatic, mineral-edged expression of Barolo. The other half of the calculation lies in Myers’ innovative winemaking, for Nebbiolo at least.

The winemaking notes read more like Burgundy than Barolo (which, in turn, tells you much of what you need to know about the wine). Myers worked with 55% whole bunches, and the wine spent 18 days on skins. It was bottled unfined and unfiltered after 18 months on fine lees in a thick-staved Garbellotto botti, with no racking and late malolactic fermentation. The wine opens with loads of red fruits, gentle bunchy goodness, some sweetness and all kinds of flowers. A wine built on perfume!  It changes quite a bit with air, building depth and dialling up the dark cherry and spice. In short, don’t be in a rush and give it plenty of air. It really made us think of top, old-vine Chambolle—as though Roumier made Barolo! Regardless of who made it, this is one of the most perfumed, silken and downright charming Barolos you’re likely to lay your hands on. Importer’s notes

Click here for our full Italian range