Mix Italiano - hotdogs and a tour of the boot

Wanted to make this one a little more memorable, so while everyone was gathering at Lo I pulled the portable charcoal grill (mangal in Ukrainian) out onto the street, fired it up, and we started grilling old-school hotdogs with Korean-style spicy carrots and sauerkraut - the proper Ukrainian street-food kit. A magnum of Ca' dei Zago col fondo opened, poured into glasses between turning the sausages on the grill. By the time we drifted inside, the appetites were properly set.

The lineup that followed was built around a few specific bottles I'd been wanting to open. A ten-year-old Etna Pinot from Gulfi - the Pinò 2016, drawn from a sub-half-hectare planting on the volcano's northern slope. The Brunello I keep buying despite the bruising price tag, Stella di Campalto Bosco 2018. And a thirteen-year vertical-pair test of Lino Maga's Barbacarlo Montebuono - the 2018 against the 2005, same wine and same patient template, just thirteen years apart on the clock.

Around those anchors: a beautiful long-form orange Sauvignon from Tenuta Grillo, a precise Langhe Chardonnay from David Fletcher, and a surprise bonus a guest brought - a Radikon Slatnik 2017 served blind. Then more hotdogs and a few extra bottles to close: a long-aged Nicola Gatta Cuvée Nature, an Arpepe Rosso di Valtellina, and an Arpepe Stella Retica Sassella to keep the Nebbiolo theme running into the night.

A beautiful evening - the kind where the format does as much work as the bottles, and both deliver.

Ca' Dei Zago Valdobbiadene Prosecco Magnum

Ca' dei Zago is a fifth-generation family estate in Valdobbiadene founded in 1924, now run by siblings Christian and Marika - one of the touchstones of the col fondo revival. The Magnum is their signature: a Valdobbiadene DOCG sparkling refermented in bottle on its lees, undisgorged, intentionally cloudy. Majority Glera with a complement of Verdiso, Perera, and Bianchetta from old hand-tended plots, two days on skins, spontaneous ferment in cement, no fining or filtration. In magnum the larger format slows lees autolysis and gives the wine a longer, calmer second life.

The welcome pour, served from magnum on the street while we set up the mangal and worked through hotdogs in the gathering crowd. Col fondo - cloudy, refermented, properly natural Prosecco rather than the industrial register most people know. Bright, savoury, the kind of fizz that pairs with food rather than sitting on its own. The right opening note for the evening.

David Fletcher Langhe Chardonnay 2023

David Fletcher is the Adelaide-born winemaker who moved to Piedmont in 2007 to work harvest at Ceretto and launched his own négoce label in 2009; cellar today is in Barbaresco's converted train station ("La Stazione"). The Langhe Chardonnay sits alongside his Nebbiolo lineup: whole-bunch pressed with no sulphur and handled oxidatively into barrel, then spontaneously fermented and aged around nine months on lees with roughly 30% new French oak per year. Texture from lees and skin work rather than oak signature.

Same lovely Chardonnay. Smoke and lemon hit first, then plums wander in unexpectedly. Vanilla and butter know their place, no single element shouting over the others. Palate maintains that same balance - fresh and structured, buttery richness held in check by proper minerality. Burgundy-leaning but never derivative. Still great stuff.

Tenuta Grillo Solleone 2018

Tenuta Grillo is Guido Zampaglione's Piedmontese estate in Gamalero, Monferrato - a patient cellar releasing wines eight to fifteen years after harvest. Solleone is his long-form orange wine from 100% Sauvignon Blanc, the name a nod to the dog-day sun the grapes ripen under. Around 60 days on skins with native yeasts, then roughly a year in steel and at least five more years in bottle before release - unfined, unfiltered, the variety reshaped by maceration time.

Same Solleone register as before, with a new note creeping in: rose-petal jam alongside the apricot jam, dried herbs, dried flowers, and that flicker of bubble gum / canned tuna funk that's typical Northern Italy skin contact. Not super tannic on the palate, round and well-structured, long and delicate on the finish. Charming and quaffable - the kind of orange wine that wins over the skeptics at the table.

Radikon Slatnik 2017

Radikon is the Oslavia (Friuli) house Stanko Radikon built into one of the canonical orange-wine references; Saša Radikon launched the friendlier 750ml "S-line" in 2009. Slatnik is the entry into that line: roughly 80% Chardonnay and 20% Friulano from the Slatnik plot, with eight to fourteen days on skins and around a year in large old botti - far shorter than the long-maceration Oslavia cuvées. Stanko died in 2016; Saša has carried the S-line forward with the same template since.

Delicious - bonus bottle served blind, clearly Friulian and not from a Gravner bottle. Less polished than the Oslavia register Joško Gravner works in, funkier in a way that pulled me toward Radikon. I landed on the S-line (Slatnik or thereabouts) because the fruit ran rounder and more open than the edgier, more nervous register of Stanko's longer-skin-contact wines - the S-line has always been Radikon's friendlier side. Pencil shavings open the nose, then VA and hairspray cut through, with apricot jam and persimmon settling underneath. Long on the palate, mineral, properly complex - the kind of orange that gives you something new every minute in the glass.

Gulfi Pinò 2016

Pinò is Gulfi's experimental Etna Pinot Noir from Vigna Militi in Randazzo, planted in under half a hectare on the volcano's northern slope at around 800 metres - sharing ground with the Nerello Mascalese that becomes their Reseca. Native ferments, neutral Slavonian wood, no additions to speak of. A small, deliberate outlier in a Sicilian cellar otherwise built on indigenous varieties.

Gorgeous wine - and more developed than the first time I had it. The cherry confiture and floral basket are still there, but balsamic sauce and a flicker of tapenade have entered the register, and the wine reads more elevated than before. Very feminine. Acidity sharp, freshness still crisp, juicy sway running through. Etna Pinot at ten years showing exactly what cool-climate Sicilian Pinot can become.

Barbacarlo Montebuono 2018

Montebuono is Lino Maga's sibling cuvée to the legendary Barbacarlo, from a south-facing parcel adjacent to but less extreme than the Barbacarlo slope in the Oltrepò Pavese commune of Broni. The blend is Croatina-led with Uva Rara, Vespolina (Ughetta locally) and a touch of Barbera. Fruit is foot-trodden, ferments spontaneously for seven to eight days, ages around eight months in 3000-litre old casks racked by the moon, then bottled the spring after the following harvest with fermentation often still finishing in glass.

Old-school from the first lift - tobacco, raw earth, the damp of an old cellar, leather pulled across the top, with a touch of VA threading through. The palate is juicy and round, with sweet tannin and a polished frame that still carries proper challenge and character behind the friendliness. Licorice and prune emerge on the close, the kind of register Montebuono settles into once it gets some air. This particular bottle ran heavier on the damp-cellar side than I'd want - the cork was clean, the wine just leaned a bit too far into the funk - but the underlying complexity and the sheer drinkability override the small reservation. The kind of wine you drink first and dissect second.

Barbacarlo Montebuono 2005

The same wine as the 2018, made by Lino Maga himself more than a decade before his death at year-end 2021, and bottled to the same patient template: Croatina with Uva Rara, Vespolina and a touch of Barbera, foot-trodden, fermented with indigenous yeasts, aged in big old Slavonian casks and bottled the following spring with fermentation often finishing in glass. The Montebuono parcel and its method have not materially shifted over the years; what changes with age is the wine in glass, not the recipe behind it.

Beautiful - properly beautiful. Fruit still pushes through twenty years on, alongside chocolate, tobacco, leather, with semi-dried berries breaking through: raspberry, cornel cherry, viburnum. Properly long finish. Elegant despite the structural aggression - the tannin still hasn't found its place after all these years, but the wine wears the unresolved tension like a feature rather than a problem.

Stella di Campalto Brunello di Montalcino Bosco 2018

Bosco is one of Stella di Campalto's site-named Brunello cuvées from her Podere San Giuseppe estate in Castelnuovo dell'Abate, near the Abbey of Sant'Antimo. The blend draws from four south- and southwest-facing plots - Bosco, San Giuseppe, Ulivo, and Curva - between 210 and 290 metres on a property with twelve distinct soil types. Spontaneous ferment in 20-40hl wooden vats with no pied de cuve, around 34 months in 15-17hl casks plus roughly 30 months in bottle. Organic since 1996, biodynamic since 2002, with output across all Brunello bottlings only around 14,000 bottles.

Nuanced and patient. The bouquet opens on cherry confiture and dark chocolate liqueur candies with cherry filling, then deepens into chorizo, leather, underbrush, and red flowers - the kind of aromatic arc that rewards sitting with the glass rather than dissecting it. Super delicate on the palate, the tannin slightly dry, the structure and balance superb; acidity isn't high but the wine never reads heavy, and the finish runs long and warm, closing on milk chocolate, raspberry, and a flicker of peony. A charmer in the strongest sense - a wine that begs to be drunk in volume but rewards you for slowing down. Despite the intensity, it still floats - airy, pillowy, the kind of Brunello that quietly settles the argument about why this house sits where it does.

Nicola Gatta Cuvée Nature d2024-09 CN6

Nicola Gatta works limestone-rich calcareous hills in Gussago and Cellatica on the eastern edge of Franciacorta, deliberately outside the DOCG so he can bottle as Vino Spumante on his own terms. Cuvée Nature is roughly 80% Chardonnay and 20% Pinot Nero, spontaneously fermented in tonneaux, secondary fermented in bottle, and aged around thirty lunar months on lees before disgorgement. Zero dosage, no added sulphites, no filtration. This release is the CN6 batch, disgorged September 2024.

Same Gatta as the recent April encounters - the medicinal-leaning oxidation, bruised apples, yellow plums. Great structure, complex, distinctive. Each pour confirms it: unconventional, demanding, increasingly compelling. Proper sparkling wine with real character.

Arpepe Rosso di Valtellina Nebbiolo 2022

Rosso di Valtellina is Arpepe's entry tier and the youngest expression of Chiavennasca (Nebbiolo) the family releases. Born in 2003 as a vintage blend across the family's cru sites when the harvest demanded it, it has stayed in the range ever since. Native-yeast ferment, extended maceration in wooden vats, six to twelve months in large untoasted casks of Slavonian or French oak before further bottle time.

Same Rosso di Valtellina I'd had in November. Perfumed, with black berries - blueberry, blackberry, bilberry - earth, wood, and spices threading through as half-tones rather than primary voices. Great structure, beautiful acidity, good balance. Tasty - but ripe and just sweet enough to pull in a direction that doesn't quite align with what I want from Nebbiolo even at this entry level.

Arpepe Sassella Stella Retica 2022

Stella Retica is Arpepe's Sassella sub-zone Valtellina Superiore, drawn from the rocky upper terraces of one of the appellation's most prized slopes. 100% Chiavennasca (Nebbiolo), fermented with indigenous yeasts, then aged 18-24 months in large old casks of Slavonian and French oak before extended bottle rest. The alpine, fine-boned counterpoint to Piedmontese Nebbiolo - red fruit and dried rose carried by stony tension.

Lovely bottle, properly young. The nose stays delicate and subtle - wild dark and red berries threading through uzvar, yancha, earth, night flowers, and a flicker of dusty road. Nuanced and juicy on the palate, vibrant, the tannin dusty and quite dry at this age. Properly beautiful and refined - the kind of young Sassella that promises more in another five years but already drinks well now.

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