Source: jamessuckling.com. Issue Date: Thursday, March 3, 2022 (JS-92)

A rich and dense red from Sardinia with dark berries and plums, as well as walnuts and bark. It’s full and chewy and slightly rustic. But real at the same time. Drink or hold.

Source: Winemaker,

Grape Blend: 60% Carignan, 10% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Cabernet Franc, 10% Merlot 10% Syrah

The Agricola Punica, Montessu is a stylish, fresh red, with spiced black raspberry and black currant fruit and accents of green olive, dried thyme and sweet smoke, finely meshed with long, supple tannins. Medium- to full-bodied, this shows good focus and length. It is made in Sardinia in a Super Tuscan style.

Agricola Punica is a joint venture between Sebastiano Rosa, Sardinian winery Cantina di Santadi, Tenuta San Guido, Santadi President Antonello Pilloni and legendary Tuscan consulting oenologist Giacomo Tachis. Sebastiano Rosa, oenologist and winemaker at Tenuta San Guido and Santadi, the highly respected Sardinia cooperative, represent the majority ownership, with forthy percent each. Tenuta San Guido, under the presidency of Marchese Nicolò Incisa della Rocchetta, holds ten percent, with Giacomo Tachis and Santadi President Antonello Pilloni equally sharing the remain ten percent.
It was really Mr. Tachis who thought about the the Sardinia and Carignano match and he persuaded all the others in order to produce a fantastic Carignano wine.

The Southwest corner of Sardinia is a near perfect environment for the hot climate traits of the Carignano vine. Winter are mild and summer are hot and dry with temperatures, stoked by the fierce scirocco African winds blowing across the Sardinian Sea, among the hottest in Italy. An extraordinary average of seven hours of sunlight daily enable the fruit to reach a level of ripeness such that polymerization of the tannins begins within the berry while it is still on the vine. “It is the amount of light that makes this the perfect region of Carignano based wines! The sun provides heat and light which causes grapes to mature very well. The Cabernet and Merlot mature much faster than they would in Bordeaux, for example. And on the top of that, the wonderful influence from the sea regulates the extreme heat and stabilizes the climate”, recounts Giacomo Tachis.

There are not certitudes about its introduction in the Sardinian Sulcitana area, but thinking to the Phoenician is reasonable. In the remote past this vine was not supervise, then with the Appellation of Origin coming as well as the regulation of the Appellation controlée, discipline of production, the Carignano suffered even some “humiliations” ; in fact it was punished with a sort of marquee culture to obtained disproportionate quantities not suitable for the qualitative issuing.
The Carignano quality in the Sulcis is excellent not only for the colour, for structure and alcoholic richness of the obtained wine, but also for the tenderness of its extractive components: from the tannic ones to the acid titrant patrimony which reveals itself temperate and elegant going from the aromatic to the spicy, from the glycerine moods to all the rest.