Dettori· Romangia, Sardegna
About the domain.
Some of Alessandro Dettori's Cannonau predates phylloxera, bush-trained, ungrafted, on its own roots in Sardinian sandstone. I can count the producers in Italy with vines like that on one hand, and none of them taste like this. Nineteen hectares in Romangia, the windswept northwest corner of Sardegna, farmed biodynamically by the fourth generation.
The cellar is as bare as the farming is rigorous: whole-cluster fermentation, ageing in old chestnut and oak, no temperature control, no fining, no filtration. What lands in bottle reads closer to wild fermentation than to anything modern. The Romangia Rosso is one of the most distinctive reds on the island, pale, aromatic, dried herbs, a finish that tastes of sea salt. The Romangia Bianco, from Moscato and Vermentino, asks the same of a drinker: meet it halfway.
Alessandro makes wine for his own table, prices it low, and makes very little of it. None of that makes the allocation easy, but it is the reason I keep one.
Pale, aromatic, saline.
Romangia Bianco and Renosu Bianco show the herbal lift and salinity that defines the Dettori house style. Vinified without compromise.
Wild, saline, Cannonau.
Romangia Rosso from this vintage carries the windswept fingerprint of the Sardinian coast. Dried herbs, sea salt, untreated fermentation.
Direct, transparent.
A balanced year on the Romangia hills. The reds read as clear expressions of bush-vine Cannonau and Pascale, biodynamically farmed.