In the hinterland of that continent enclosed in an island that is Sardinia, in Barbagia, there is a small village of about 2500 inhabitants that enjoys 400 hectares of land (divided between 200 different families) in which the Cannonau grape has found the best possible habitat. In this area, in fact, the vineyards grow even at 1000 meters high, with an average altitude of over 700, and the vine, raised as a low sapling, has found a microclimate so favorable to be able to stay healthy for many years (a third of the plants has more than 50).
In these lands, in the ’70s, Giuseppe Sedilesu began to produce bulk wine, marketed in neighboring countries, from a hectare of land led to sharecropping. The success of those wines led him to buy, with many sacrifices, five hectares, the first real nucleus of the homonymous Giuseppe Sedilesu winery, and to bottle in 2000 the first thousand bottles of Cannonau Mamuthone, already then one of his most famous wines. Today the property has become 15 hectares, the new winery was inaugurated (in 2009), the production has exceeded 100,000 bottles, and the fate of the winery are decided by Salvatore Sedilesu, the son of Joseph, with his brothers Francesco and Antoinetta, and their families.
In the vineyard is practiced a sustainable viticulture, favored by the climatic conditions of the property vineyards (to 650 meters of altitude) which has been mentioned before, joined to a job in vineyard of traditional/ manual type with the occasional use of oxen-drawn agricultural instruments. Even in the cellar there is the same approach: the fermentations take place spontaneously, with indigenous yeasts, no filtration is done and the wines age in inert environments such as cement tanks or large exhausted oak barrels.
Despite the winery is famous for its cannonau, it is worth remembering that in some vineyards there are plants between 50 and 100 years of age of a white grape variety, almost completely forgotten, which is known by the name of Granazza. From this vine comes the homonymous Granazza wine which, after the vinification carried out in cement tanks, as I wrote before, ages for about 9 months always in cement and, therefore, is bottled without filtration.
The 2015 vintage has an intense straw yellow color, with an olfactory range that opens on notes of dried apricot, yellow peach, wild shrubs and green tea, followed by bitter orange jam, dandelion, Mediterranean scrub and humus, with a concluding echo of damp pebbles. The mouthfeel is characterized by an immediate richness and softness, enriched by the sapid-mineral component and the good acidity to balance the sip, all while retro-olfactory return the yellow fruit, the bitter orange and the humus that accompany the sip until a good length closure.
Rating: 88/100
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