Capichera Isola dei Nuraghi Assaje Carignano 2011
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Capichera is an Italian wine producing company located in a corner of Sardinia, nestled among the granite rocks of Gallura, in Arzachena, in a unique natural setting with great charm that exudes important and ancient traditions. It’s a family-run winery belonging to the Ragnedda Family, a tradition that dates back at the end of 1800 when the owners’ great-grand parents already cultivated the vineyard for family use and small local trade. At the end of the 70s the family-run company followed its great intuition, leading to a significant transition in wines and not just in Sardinia. It was the first winery to enhance the ageing of pure Vermentino in barrels with remarkable success, proposing a model founded on the highest quality production and continuous research through respectful and rigorous viticulture of the land, allowing this grape variety to reveal its great peculiarities and characteristics. In 1980 the first Vermentino with the Capichera label began to be distributed on the market in a flask. The dedication began to bear fruit: Capichera wine was appreciated and the consumers demand increased. In 1990 a new label was put on the market: the VT, first Vermentino vinified in barriques. The passion, the investment of great resources and improvement of the production model over the years have defined new elevated qualitative standards, with a primary focus for each vineyard and single piece of land, enhancing the characteristics.
Responsible for some of the most stunning old vine red wine on the planet, Carignan has an amazing capacity to survive dry, arid climates and still produce lovely, mouthwatering wine. In Spain it goes by the name of Mazuelo or Cariñena and while it may have originated there in the province of Aragón, its popularity lies elsewhere, particularly in Languedoc-Roussillon. Somm Secret—Historically Carignan did not enjoy the respect that it does today. In the mid 20th century, Carignan covered nearly 140,000 ha in Algeria, where it was made into low quality bulk and blending wine to supply mass-market demand.
Hailed for centuries as a Mediterranean vine-growing paradise, multiple cultures over many centuries have ruled the large island of Sardinia. Set in the middle of the Tyrrhenian Sea, the Phonoecians, Ancient Rome, and subsequently the Byzantines, Arabs and Catalans have all staked a claim on the island at some point in history. Along the way, these inhabitants transported many of their homeland’s prized vines and today Sardinia’s modern-day indigenous grape varieties claim multiple origins. Sardinia’s most important red grapes—namely Cannonau (a synonym for Grenache) and Carignan—are actually of Spanish origin.
Vermentino, a prolific Mediterranean variety, is the island’s star white. Vermentino has a stronghold the Languedoc region of France as well as Italy’s western and coastal regions, namely Liguria (where it is called Pigato), Piedmont (where it is called Favorita) and in Tuscany, where it goes by the name, Vermentino. The best Vermentino, in arguably all of the Mediterranean, grows in Sardinia's northeastern region of Gallura where its vines struggle to dig roots deep down into north-facing slopes of granitic soils. These Vermentino vines produce highly aromatic, full and concentrated whites of unparalleled balance.
Today aside from its dedication to viticulture, Sardinia remains committed to maintaining its natural farmlands, bucolic plains of grazing sheep and perhaps most of all, its sandy, sunny, Mediterranean beaches.