Blanc de Noirs Nature 70 lune 09/24-D32

"Suoli calcarei, nessun compromesso", limestone soils and no compromise, is printed on the front of this bottle, the same line that heads Nicola Gatta's website. His vineyards sit on the limestone hills of Gussago and Cellatica at around 400 metres. On his site the line stands over the practices behind it: no herbicides or synthetic chemicals in the vineyard, only spontaneous fermentations with indigenous yeasts, no fining or stabilising agents and no added sulphites.

The Blanc de Noirs is Pinot Noir only, and one of the cuvées where he leans most on reserve wines; he prefers blending years to bottling a single vintage. Both fermentations, the one in bottle included, run on indigenous yeasts only, and the wine gets a short passage in wood. One merchant describes the reserves as kept in cement; another describes an earlier release as four vintages, one of them aged in a large barrel.

It then spends 70 lune on its lees. Gatta counts a luna as 28 days, so that is a little over five years and four months. This bottle was disgorged in September 2024. Gatta asks for at least six months of rest after disgorgement before a bottle is opened, and in August 2025 the Blanc de Noirs disgorged in September 2024 was the bottle he said he would open right then.