Producer Sardinia, Italy
Antonella Corda
Antonella Corda's estate is at Pranu Raimondo, just outside Serdiana, in the lower Campidano north of Cagliari in southern Sardinia. She founded it in 2010, which makes it one of the newer names on the island, but the family behind it is anything but new. The Cordas have been in wine for five generations, and Antonella's grandfather was Antonio Argiolas, the man more responsible than anyone for the modern reputation of Sardinian wine. This is not the Argiolas winery, though. It is her own estate, under her own name.
She took a degree in agricultural sciences and technology at the University of Sassari, then went north to Trentino for a master's in vine and wine system management at the Edmund Mach Foundation, one of the better research institutes in Italy. She came back to Sardinia in 2010 to start on her own account. The result is an estate that reads as a technical project as much as a family inheritance.
The farm runs to about 40 hectares in total: 15 hectares of vines, mostly within the municipality of Serdiana, 12 hectares of local olive varieties (Tonda di Cagliari and Pitze Carroga), and the rest left open for rotation. There are two vineyards, and they are different from one another. Mitza Manna, six hectares at 200 metres, was Antonio Argiolas's own favourite vineyard. It is planted with Vermentino and Nuragus on sandy, clay and loam soils with a significant limestone content, which is where the freshness and the floral lift in her whites come from. Mitza S'ollastu, on the boundary with Ussana, is planted with Vermentino and Cannonau on a mixture of sand, loam, clay and pebbles.
She describes her farming as sustainable rather than organic. In practice that means organic fertilisers, integrated pest management and low-impact irrigation.
What she is known for is a light hand. The Cannonau is macerated gently and aged partly in untoasted French oak barriques so the wood does not swamp the fruit. That is the opposite of the traditional Sardinian approach, where Cannonau was often given heat and heavy oak. The Vermentino spends six months on its own lees in steel with no wood at all. Her neighbours in Serdiana, Argiolas included, tend to make bigger, more structured wines, but hers are built around freshness. Whether that is better is a matter of taste. It is certainly different, and it is what makes her wines worth seeking out.
The range is built on Vermentino di Sardegna and Cannonau di Sardegna. Alongside them she makes a Nuragus under the Cagliari DOC, from the island's oldest and least fashionable white grape, and a red under the Isola dei Nuraghi IGT.
Winery at Serdiana, Sardinia · Cannonau and Vermentino · £26.95 to £34.95 a bottle
