Sardinia is of volcanic origin and wines from the island have a distinctive minerality to them. Almost all of our vineyards are close to the sea, even when they are in the mountains and thanks to exposure to our different winds, the “sapidità” (saltiness) is also a distinctive feature.
We have chosen an area smack in the middle of the original “Blue zone”, famous for their high concentration of Centenarians and also high polyphenol wines. The Mandrolisai are 5 mountain communities boasting one of the only regions of a Sardo DOC named for a region rather than a varietal.
The Mandrolisai wines are a DOC heroic-co-harvest made from 3 of Sardinia’s most typical varietals, Bovale (Muristellu), Cannonau and Monica.
Bovale and Cannonau make big dark red wines thanks to the thick skinned Bovale grape, with a fair amount of tannins. Monica mellows out these two varietals and makes Mandrolisai a wine with a bouquet of red fruit, white flowers and the complete range of Sardinian brush (macchia mediterranea), going from rosemary and sage to pepper, star anise and earth.
A good friend of ours and chef in Sardinia calls Mandrolisai Sardinia in a glass and we can’t agree more! Tacchis, the creator of the Super Tuscans and wines like Capichera, when he came to the Mandrolisai, said that this is the terroir for the Super Sardos. And that they are.