Cantina Vignaioli Elvio Pertinace Barbaresco Vigneto Nervo 1996
We encounter a solid amount of wines here at Last Bottle Galaxy Headquarters that WILL LAST in your cellar for decades, but a PRECIOUS FEW are already aged for you and with another decade of life in them!! WOW!! 1996! Spice Girls were hot, Adam Sandler was funny, and Travelocity was launched!! Priced like 1996, too -- woo hoooo!
In Barbaresco, this wine destined for your mouth (a brain-rattling aged-wine epiphany) was being harvested, and we just took delivery of a tiny, immaculate, can’t-wait-to-rip-into-it parcel of this perfectly aged Nebbiolo (from the single cru of Nervo), direct from the winery cellars. Crazy price! It’s amazing these stocks still exist in northern Italy, given how Barbaresco is, like, the hottest thing in the wine world right now!! Whatever, we just JUMPED on it!!
Side note: I’ve been sitting and swirling and drinking and inhaling and canoodling on this for 3 days. It’s one of those that just keeps changing in the glass, morphing and offering up different sides. TOO. COOL.
Anyway, Cantina Vignaioli is a relatively young cooperative (1973) sourcing grapes from 13 different Barbaresco growers/vintners, much like the legendary Produttori (Google it!). Somehow, through tons of emails and samples sent, we found this treasure trove. 1996 is a VERY fine vintage in the region, but this is truly exceptional. And now it’s finally here. Dig in!! This is a thinking man’s and woman’s juice here - a wine to treat with some reverence -- it’s ASTOUNDING to be SO young, fresh and lively AND have all the neuron-popping complexity only aged wine has to offer. Goodness, where to start. Cranberry, rhubarb, warm berry compote, earth, tea, orange oil, bay leaf, tobacco, dried spices, then it warms up and a whole slew of new cool things start rolling -- licorice, cardamom, sandalwood, mushrooms, balsamic, cherry...MAN!! I’m, like...TRIPPING! So check it out for yourself at the best price you’ll ever see!!
P.S. Got a decanter? Bust it out. Pour it slowly off and leave the bit of sediment behind. This gets the oxygen pumping into the wine and makes it pop! Remember this wine is 25 yrs old (Tupac’s 4th album came out and, lest we never forget, Tom Cruise was sailing on his yacht off the island of Capri and saved 5 people from a burning, sinking sailboat. True story.
“The Sun makes the grapes tasty. The sun on the hillsides is our patrimony”.
Technical Details
Country: ItalyRegion: Piedmont
Appellation: Barbaresco
Varietal: Nebbiolo
Vineyard: Nervo
Alcohol: 13.50%
About The Producer
Cantina Vignaioli embodies the philosophy of terroir and microclime in four types of wine: Barbaresco DOCG, Barolo DOCG, Barbera d’Alba DOC e Dolcetto d’Alba DOC.
Cantina Vignaioli: a winegrowers’ cooperative which identifies with its territory, the region of Barbaresco, where tenacity, passion and work make the members the main protagonists of a business.
Founded in 1973 following a project by Mario Barbero, the Cantina Vignaioli had thirteen members in the region of Treiso. They all shared a tie with the Langa hills and the same desire a: to create a business able to process the grapes and put a new brand on the market, symbol of a land of great wines.
They bet on Nebbiolo for Barbaresco, in the late 70s they started to bottle their wine. Its development has never stopped, thanks to the sacrifices made by the members: the venues were enlarged in the 80s and equipped with state-of-the-art technologies; in 1990 a packaging area was added. The members have always been market-oriented, with great interest in foreign countries.
The promotion of the Barbaresco region, the high quality of the wines and the identity of Cantina Pertinace were immediately appreciated. Over the years they have reached the world’s markets, consolidating their presence especially in the United States, in Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Poland, South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong.
Pairing Suggestions
Grilled meats and cheeses
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