Northern Piedmont Knockout! - Conti

5/7/14 - 

Sometimes we get lucky, and find a great deal – fewer times we get extremely lucky and we find a great deal from one of a small region’s best producers – Castello Conti.  Located an hour Northwest of Milan, Boca is part of the string of small Alto Piemonte appellations, along with neighbors Gattinara and Ghemme.  Here, individual villages’ wines differ slightly in grape composition and soil, but the consistant is Spanna, the local, small-berried mutation of Nebbiolo, grown on volcanic terroir.  No cru is large, but Boca is a mere 29 acres, and of that the Conti daughters work about 2.5 acres (to put this in perspective, the Grand Cru Echezeaux is 86 acres.)  We’ve not tried all of the 10 or so producers of Boca, but we certainly consider the Conti wines as good as any we’ve tried, including the very tasty wines from Vallana.  The Conti vines were planted in 1971 by Ermanno Conti, and today his three daughters: Elena, Anna, and Paola, farm organically and maintain the tradition of hand harvesting, and native yeast ferments.   Wines from the far northern reaches of Piedmont combine some of the flavor of Langhe wines: earthy strawberry and tar with brighter acidity and fresher, lighter flavors that remind us of Burgundy.  You (probably) won’t have another chance to try another for this price!