Lotti Sparsi Cuvee 000 R

Lotti Sparsi - literally "scattered lots" - is the side project of Borgogno Rivata's winemaker Giovanni Mingolla: US importer Amuninni Vini describes it as a quasi-negociant venture whose motto, Una Volta, per Sempre - once, forever - reflects that every year grapes from a different place are vinified. A Danish merchant adds that the project was created to tell the stories of parcels, grapes and wines that otherwise risk disappearing. The label carries only the Lotti Sparsi name and a hand-numbered bottle count, with Borgogno Rivata appearing just in the bottler line.

Cuvee 000 R, the project's first release, is 100% Dolcetto from a roughly century-old pie franco - ungrafted - vineyard, per the importer; sommelier Amanda Smeltz adds that the parcel's aging owner could no longer keep tending it. New York merchant Thirst places the fruit in Dogliani on sandy clay soils, though the coordinates printed on the label point to Diano d'Alba, a dozen kilometres north.

Thirst details the winemaking: 70% destemmed and 30% whole clusters, a spontaneous fermentation macerating for about 20 days, then a year in concrete tank before bottling unfined and unfiltered with under 20 ppm of added sulphur; the long maceration and the concrete aging are echoed by other merchants. The wine is an unvintaged Vino Rosso, and the run was 648 bottles and 15 magnums, each numbered by hand. The follow-up Cuvee 001 keeps the one-off promise by moving on entirely: 100% Nebbiolo blended from three Barolo vintages, per the importer.