Pianta Grossa. Vallee d'Aoste Donnas 'Georgos'

Vallee d'Aoste Donnas DOC
Grape: Nebbiolo

2019 produced unusually full bodied Picotendro (Nebbiolo), with more blueberry and black cherry character, leather and crushed pepper just showing though.  A very fine wine. 13%

2018 Mint, cherries, raspberry, flint and white flowers on the nose.  Plum, leather and strawberry, intense spice, porcini, flint and bramble.  Still youthful, vigorous and absolutely delicious.

Pianta Grossa producer page

Georgos is the Greek word for ‘workers of the land’, and this wine is a visceral expression of a devotion to generations who have worked the land.  The vines are grown on high pergolas of granite and wood, perched on dry-stone terraces, backfilled with sandy, morainic soils from the valley floor, enriched by generations of degraded organic matter.  No tractor can help farm these vineyards, so the soil has never been compacted and treatments are minimal. 

The vines are between 45-50 years old.  In 2019 the grapes were picked in the middle of November, it was a high quality vintage, wet in the spring and dry in the summer, without excessive heat.  The bunches were de-stemmed and fermented in a single, 25hl conical, temperature-controlled (28ºC) steel tank with the cap submerged* for 90 days.  The wine was then matured for 2 years in a Stockinger Austrian oak botti*.