From: Sardinia, Italy

Varietal: Torbato

Taste: A delicate straw yellow with golden tones in the glass, this wine shows aromas of baked lemon, white peach, a floral touch of chamomile, and refined mineral tones. Fresh and crisp, this assertive wine is carried by rounded flavors of peach, pear, honeysuckle, a flinty minerality, and its pleasing acidity.

Pairing: This wine will lend itself well to a variety of fresh pairings. You could opt for classic steamed clams with white wine and garlic, lemon garlic shrimp, a variety of salmon preparations (see the recipe below), or grilled chicken with an herby salad on the side. Large portions of land on the Italian isle of Sardinia are used for grazing sheep as a source of meat, milk, and cheese, so lamb dishes and sheep’s milk cheeses follow as a natural pairing for this wine—think of a simple mushroom pasta topped with lots of pecorino.

Salmon Roasted in Butter by Mark Bittman

About. In 1899 two Piedmontese adventurers (and brothers-in-law), Vittorio Sella, an engineer, and Edgardo Mosca, a lawyer, seized the opportunity to establish a wine estate on land bordering the pretty, historic port of Alghero on the northwestern coast of Sardinia. Sella and Mosca started a nursery for wine grape rootstocks on their new land as the devastating Phylloxera louse from North America spread throughout Europe like wildfire. However, the pest did not spread across the ocean to Sardinia, which allowed Sella and Mosca to sell the pest-free baby vines they were creating to regions of Italy and southern Europe as they worked to replant vineyards. Meanwhile, in 1903 the estate excavated its rocky soils to plant vines and build a complex including the winery, worker housing, a school house, a small church, and 12.5 acre nature preserve maintained for Mediterranean botanical species.

Today, Sella & Mosca’s 1600-acre estate (which contains 1200 acres of vines) is one of the largest in Europe. Sardinians reportedly take great pride in the prestige of the winery, which makes a point to respect the celebrate the cultural context and environment in which it is situated. Its logo, for example, (as seen featured in gold on this bottle’s label) centers Sella & Mosca within humankind’s long history of winemaking. It is modeled after a relief of a wine pressing scene uncovered within the mastaba tomb of a powerful man named Mereruka, who lived in in Saqqara, Egypt during Ancient Egypt’s 6th Dynasty (c. 2345-2181 BCE). The scene depicts five men using long poles to press the grapes contained in a sack, so that the juice filters through the fabric and falls into the jar below.

This wine is made from the white grape known as Torbato, which is said to have reached the shores of the Iberian Peninsula thanks to the Phoenicians, and later brought to the island by the Catalans when they governed it. Sella & Mosca studied the rare varietal for years and was first winery to produce it unblended.

This Terre Bianche bottling takes its name from the calcareous soils it comes from in the province of Alghero, which is known as the “Coral Riviera.”  The sun-kissed vines witness warm diurnal temperatures moderated by sea breezes, which help yield concentrated Torbato that can retain its rich acidity.

The grapes were harvested by hand and transported to the press house as quickly as possible. Here they were sorted and carefully crushed prior to fermentation in stainless steel tanks at controlled temperatures. The wine matured on its fine lees for several months before bottling.