In focus: Sardinia’s native grapes

With its shimmering blue seas and bounty of native grapes, Sardinia could soon be giving Sicily competition as Italy’s most exciting island wine region. Lucy Shaw comes away converted to its charms.

I’m standing in front of a metal cage filled with bottles of recently resurrected sparkling wine that have been sleeping on the seabed for nearly a year. The smell is intense and lung-filling, like freshly opened oysters. Sealed with golden wax, each bottle bears the hallmarks of its underwater rest, the glass flecked with pink and white coral speckles, like a bright constellation seen from afar. The patterns differ from bottle to bottle, making each one unique.

The ocean-aged Akènta Sub

The wine inside is a sparkling Vermentino made from grapes grown on sandy soils close to the sea in Alghero. Masterminded by Sardinian co-operative Santa Maria La Palma, for the past five years a portion of Akènta Extra Dry has been aged under water next to Alghero’s craggy Capo Caccia cliffs to see how deep-sea ageing affects the character of the wine.

The standard version is fresh and fruity, with floral hints. The ocean-aged version is more intense and powerful, with racy acidity and a distinct salinity. Santa Maria La Palma first experimented with ocean-aged Vermentino in 2011, and in May 2014 plunged 700 bottles of Akènta, which means ‘cheers’ in Sardinian, 30 metres deep to rest on the sea bed.

The fizz is left for eight months to a year in its underwater ‘cellar’, which offers ideal ageing conditions thanks to its constant cool temperature between 12°C-14°C, a uniform five atmospheres of pressure, and a and lack of sunlight and oxygen. “Under water is the perfect place to age any wine because it is free from its two biggest enemies – light and oxygen,” says Igor Profili, the co-op’s export director.

Wrapped in blue cellophane to protect them from ultraviolet light, the bottles are sold as Akènta Sub at a significantly higher mark-up than the standard Akènta fizz – €55 (£47) compared with €8.50. Production is limited to 1,000 bottles. The hefty price tag doesn’t appear to be putting people off.

“The bottles are designed by the sea and no two are alike – people like to keep them after they’ve opened them,” says Profili. The ritual of bringing the bottles up from the ocean attracts so much attention that last July the brains behind the project launched Akènta Day, inviting customers and the media to witness the moment on a speed boat with its own DJ, chef and sommelier.

Founded in 1959, Santa Maria La Palma is formed of 300 growers with 700 hectares of vineyards between them, in Alghero on the northwest coast of Sardinia. The co-op produces a wide variety of wines from native grapes, championing the likes of Vermentino, Cannonau (better known as Grenache), Monica and Cagnaluri. With 8,000ha under vine, Cannonau is Sardinia’s flagship variety.

Sardinia is home to an array of native grapes

Often prohibitively high in alcohol, the island’s best are an attractive ruby red and exude a pretty perfume of raspberry, cherry and violets. Sardinians are so proud of Cannonau, many believe it originated on the island rather than in Spain, and spread to Spain while Sardinia was under Catalan rule between 1323 and 1708.

The Spanish influence can still be felt on the island, particularly in Alghero, where Catalan is spoken and many northern-Spanish traditions have been upheld. During Easter in Alghero, streetlamps are covered in red cloth and emit a spooky scarlet glow to symbolise the blood of Christ.

With 320ha of Vermentino under vine, Santa Maria La Palma is one of the largest producers of the grape in Italy. “It’s a very flexible variety – we make everything from dry whites and sparklers to Sauternes-style late harvest wines from Vermentino,” says Profili.

The co-op has also become a flag-bearer for native red grape Cagnaluri, nurturing vines on chalky soils close to the ocean and in the foothills of the Monte Doglia mountains.

“Cagnaluri has a wonderful wildness to it and an appealing herbal character, offering notes of bramble fruit, liquorice, eucalyptus and spice. Like Graciano in Spain, it’s something of a Marmite wine – you’re likely to love or loathe it as a solo act. Traditionally used for adding colour and tannin to Cannonau, there are now under 40ha of Cagnaluri left in the world.

Another grape to have been saved from extinction in Sardinia is white variety Torbato – the island’s best-kept secret. Leading producer Sella e Mosca has single-handedly brought the grape back from the brink. Once widely grown in Roussillon in Southern France, where it is known as Tourbat, Torbato was abandoned in Sardinia during the 1960s > because it’s hard to grow and vinify.

Undeterred, Sella e Mosca continued to cultivate the grape, and today is the world’s largest producer of Torbato, making a million bottles a year. “Torbato is a cloudy grape that producers turned their back on in Sardinia in the ‘60s. At the time we were the island’s biggest producer and felt passionately about preserving it. We knew that if we abandoned it then it would disappear completely,” says Davide Champion, Sella e Mosca’s export director. The winery has such faith in the grape that it has upped its plantings from 80ha to 130ha, grubbing up Merlot to make room for it.

Divers get ready to bring up a cage of ocean-aged sparkling Vermentino

While Vermentino shines in youth, Torbato needs time to come out of its shell. Younger expressions offer notes of bergamot, candle wax and salty sea air, but things get interesting with bottle age and time in barrel. A tasting of the 2010 vintage of Sella e Mosca’s partially barrel-fermented top Torbato – Terre Bianche – named after the limestone soils from which it hails, was a revelation. Golden in the glass, it had developed notes of red apple, pear, honeycomb and hazelnut, and the distinctive petrol aroma found in old Rieslings.

It paired wonderfully with Sardinia’s nutty, caramel-sweet local cheese, Pecorino Sardo. While Vermentino is better known and more widely planted, Tobato may emerge as Sardinia’s great white, if producers are bold enough to hold back bottles and release it when it’s ready to be enjoyed. Torbato ages gracefully, but at the moment we release Terre Bianche after a year because that’s what the market wants. It’s a shame we don’t hold bottles back for later release as the wine’s evolution is really interesting,” says Giovanni Pinna, Sella e Mosca’s winemaker. With its high acidity, Torbato works a charm in sparkling wines.

Vermentino Vines for miles: the view from Selle e Mosca

Having been bought from Campari by Bellavista producer Terra Moretti in 2016 for €62 million, Sella e Mosca recently released its first traditional method Torbato. The project was overseen by Mattia Vezzola, Bellavista’s winemaker, who has held back some bottles to see how the fizz evolves with longer lees ageing.

Founded in 1899, Sella e Mosca started out as a successful nursery selling vine cuttings of hundreds of grape varieties all over Europe, switching to full- time wine production in the 1950s.

Today, it produces 4.5m bottles a year, and exports around 30% of its wines. At 530ha, Sella e Mosca’s Alghero headquarters is home to the biggest continuous vineyard in Europe, and one of the largest in the world, which is due to receive organic certification this year. Vermentino accounts for half of its production.

Thick-skinned and easygoing, it’s something of a dream grape for winemakers on the island, and is gaining a growing following outside of Sardinia for its attractive tropical notes of pineapple and pear, and subtle saltiness, which makes it a perfect pairing for seafood.

The hallowed ground for Vermentino in Sardinia is Gallura, in the northeast of the island, home to Sardinia’s only DOCG. Gallura’s abundance of granite soils and shrubland lead to elegant Vermentinos with notes of rosemary, citrus, green apple and sage. While Sardinia accounts for just 4% of the wine made in Italy, it is home to 85% of the country’s Vermentino.

Producing around two million bottles a year, Santa Maria La Palma’s most famous export is its Aragosta Vermentino, arguably Sardinia’s best-known wine outside the island. Launched in the 1970s and named in honour of Alghero’s prized delicacy – Catalan lobster – Aragosta accounts for almost half of the co-op’s production. The brand has proved so popular that a rosé, frizzante, brut and brut rosé have been added to the Aragosta range. The co-op’s next release – to mark its 60th anniversary this year – will be a traditional method sparkler that spends 18 months on its lees.

A room with a view: Sella e Mosca

“We’ve invested a lot in order to be a leader of sparkling wines from Sardinia. We’re looking to ramp up production, but sparkling Vermentino can be a hard sell, and tends to be a hand sell. A lot of producers in Sardinia have their sparklers made in Italy, but we have all the equipment to make it here on the island,” says Profili, who is seeking to increase the company’s exports.

“We’ve only been exporting for seven years, so we’re relatively new to the game. My dream is for people all over the world to ask for Sardinian wine when they go out for dinner, and for restaurants to include sections dedicated to Sardinia on their wine lists.

We’ve got a long way to go before we achieve that – a lot of people don’t know where the island is, and some people think we’re part of Sicily, so our first job is to educate consumers about the geography of the island and collectively promote Sardinian wines rather than our own individual brands.”

When the world wakes up to the wines, there is huge potential for growth, as only a fraction of the land on the island is dedicated to grape growing, though pockets are emerging as cradles for certain varieties – Carignan thrives in the southern region of Sulcis, while the white grape Nasco, which is used to make honey-scented sweet wines; and in the western province of Oristano you’ll find Sherry-like fortified wines made from local white Vernaccia di Oristano.

The key to Sardinian wine’s global success may lie in tourism, as the island boasts and embarrassment of riches when it comes to gorgeous stretches of coastline with powder-white sand and turquoise water that’s so clear you can see down to your flippers. Sardinia was the first place in the world to be named a ‘Blue Zone’, denoting the unusually high number of centenarians living on the island. That honour has since been bestowed upon Okinawa in Japan, Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula, Icaria in Greece and Loma Linda in San Bernardino County, California.

The slower pace of life, lack of stress and olive oil-rich Mediterranean diet has worked its magic on the locals. And in our age of mindfulness and meditation, this might just be the catnip to lure travellers over to Sardinia’s Emerald Coast and beyond. Jancis Robinson MW believes the island is on the cusp of its moment in the sun. “Like Sicily, Sardinia shows signs of real potential and determination to make the most of its raw ingredients,” she says. Champion, of Sella e Mosca, agrees: “In terms of island wines, Sicily is quite well known now, so Sardinia is the next frontier for adventurous wine lovers,” he says. “People are familiar with native grapes like Grillo and Catarratto from Sicily, and I think Sardinia has a similar opportunity with its own native grapes to make a splash internationally.”