Elio Sandri CIMAN 2019

Cascina Disa, the Sandri family's home in the hamlet of Perno, Monforte d'Alba, has a history stretching back to the early 15th century, when it served as a settlement for monks from the Abbey of Breme who were already making wine in the Langhe by the rules of tradition. Since 1965, it's been the heart of the Giovanni Sandri family estate, and Elio Sandri has continued that ancient winegrowing lineage with an almost monastic devotion to minimal intervention — certified organic, working plots on the cooler, east-facing slopes of Perno interplanted with herbs and cover crops. Ciman — Piemontese dialect for "cement" — is Elio's deliberate act of rebellion: since 2013, rather than submit this Nebbiolo to Barolo DOCG's mandatory wooden-barrel ageing, he's fermented and matured it entirely in concrete tanks for around 48 months, with no wood contact whatsoever. It's effectively a "protest wine," made specifically to show what Nebbiolo from this exact hillside tastes like when wood is removed from the equation entirely — slow, gentle, and almost untouched, with very low sulphur and nothing else added.

The result is Nebbiolo of remarkable purity: intense aromas of ripe red fruit, spice, and mineral notes lead into a complex, structured palate with real tannic grip balanced by a lively freshness that keeps the whole wine feeling vital rather than austere. Critics have called Sandri's traditional winemaking "firm, virile, and elegant," untouched by the modernist trends that reshaped much of Barolo in recent decades, and Ciman carries that same unbridled, old-school character in a genuinely unclassifiable form.