2022 Cantina D'Arcy Vino Rosso 'Pre-'

Tom Nicholson-Myers is a New Zealander who reached Piedmont the long way round - roughly ten harvests between 2012 and 2017 with Benjamin Leroux, Comte Armand, Dr Loosen and others, then work at Giuseppe Rinaldi and time at Bartolo Mascarello. In 2020 he took on the Preda vineyard in the Barolo commune: 0.8 hectares of east-facing Nebbiolo planted in 1949, at 230 to 340 metres, on a thin layer of silt over sandy Sant'Agata marl with 12.5% active limestone.

This is that fruit, released as Vino Rosso rather than Barolo DOCG - hence 'Pre-', the cru name truncated. The elevage was deliberately split: a portion stayed in tank for the whole of its raising while the remainder spent around twenty months in Garbellotto cask, the two then blended and harmonised together for a further nine months before bottling. Fifty per cent whole cluster, native yeast, thirteen days on skins, no fining and no filtration.

The result is unusually open and expressive for young Nebbiolo from this address, with cherry, raspberry and rose hip aromatics that jump from the glass and very fine-grained tannins underneath. 2022 was a drought year in the Langhe, and it was old vines on east-facing slopes that came through it best. The only way to drink Preda without waiting a decade.