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Location: Italy, Sardinia
Winemaker: Sergio Loi
Grapes: Monica
Soil: crumbling granite soils with high levels of quartz, especially feldspar
Winemaking: 12 days fermentation in huge cement tanks from the 1950s. Elevage in the same vessels for 5 months.
From the Importer PortoVino: ‘Praja’ is Sergio’s expression of local Monica grape— a zingy, light-bodied red; think spicy underbrush, herbal notes, and a touch of fruit. Drink with a slight chill, along with fregola pasta and clams, canned sardines, and big olives.
Sergio Loi is a 4th generation traditional Sardinian producer, whose family winery from the early 1900s has always practiced no chemical farming and minimum intervention in the cellar. The Cardedu vineyards are located on the island’s sparsely populated southeast coast, where soils are crumbling granite near the coast and schist in ragged-dry cliffs around Jerzu.
Sardinian producers are now catching up in popularity to those of Italy’s other large island, Sicilia. One difference that remains is that Sardinia remains more ‘lost in time’. Cardedu balances on that edge of being traditional but also thoughtful, especially considering today’s warmer climate. In the last few vintages—extremely hot and dry—Cardedu has made lower alcohol wines by picking earlier and careful vineyard management. The result, thankfully, isn’t 10% alcohol overtly hipster juice without terroir, Sergio says; it’s just wine that tastes more like the cool vintages he enjoyed in the 70s.
Location: Italy, Sardinia
Winemaker: Sergio Loi
Grapes: Monica
Soil: crumbling granite soils with high levels of quartz, especially feldspar
Winemaking: 12 days fermentation in huge cement tanks from the 1950s. Elevage in the same vessels for 5 months.
From the Importer PortoVino: ‘Praja’ is Sergio’s expression of local Monica grape— a zingy, light-bodied red; think spicy underbrush, herbal notes, and a touch of fruit. Drink with a slight chill, along with fregola pasta and clams, canned sardines, and big olives.
Sergio Loi is a 4th generation traditional Sardinian producer, whose family winery from the early 1900s has always practiced no chemical farming and minimum intervention in the cellar. The Cardedu vineyards are located on the island’s sparsely populated southeast coast, where soils are crumbling granite near the coast and schist in ragged-dry cliffs around Jerzu.
Sardinian producers are now catching up in popularity to those of Italy’s other large island, Sicilia. One difference that remains is that Sardinia remains more ‘lost in time’. Cardedu balances on that edge of being traditional but also thoughtful, especially considering today’s warmer climate. In the last few vintages—extremely hot and dry—Cardedu has made lower alcohol wines by picking earlier and careful vineyard management. The result, thankfully, isn’t 10% alcohol overtly hipster juice without terroir, Sergio says; it’s just wine that tastes more like the cool vintages he enjoyed in the 70s.