Casale della Ioria Campo Novo Cesanese 2020

The ‘Campo Novo’ is a vibrant yet remarkably complex version of the classic Cesanese grape that comes from the hilly land of Ciociaria in Lazio. The estate’s younger vines (15 years old) are harvested and spend about 15 days on the skins in steel fermenting with its own natural pied de cuve (meaning fermentation is jumpstarted by wild yeasts from the vineyard); it remains in steel on fine lees for one year before bottling. The resulting wine is built to express the youthful side of the grape and has a wildly exuberant nose of tiny garden strawberries, wild blackberries, violets, fresh tar, and fresh berry cobbler. In the mouth, brambly fruit hits up front (blackberry, sour cherry, tiny blueberries, juicy plums) but goes straight into loads of amaro spices (juniper, thyme, mountain pine) to compliment the grippy tannins while staying very fresh on its feet.