I Castagnucoli Moscato Giallo 2019

I Castagnucoli's Moscato Giallo comes from Cinto Euganeo in the southern Colli Euganei, where Nicola Dal Santo farms 3.6 hectares of mixed land — vines alongside olive groves, orchard, vegetable plots, and forest. The soils beneath his vines are split between ancient calcareous limestone, formed from a prehistoric seabed, and volcanic trachyte and basalt, pushed up roughly 30 million years ago when volcanoes emerged from that same sea. This geological duality is a defining feature of the Euganean Hills appellation and drives the mineral character in the wine.

Moscato Giallo, also known as Fior d'Arancio in Colli Euganei, is naturally a highly aromatic grape with thick skins and high terpene content — linalool, geraniol, and citronellol give it signature floral, citrus, and stone fruit aromatics. Vinified completely dry here, the grape's inherent perfume is stripped of its usual sweetness, leaving behind a saline, taut white wine rather than the passito or sparkling styles the variety is most commonly associated with in this appellation.

In the cellar, Nicola works with minimal intervention: spontaneous fermentation with native yeasts, no temperature control, aging in small vessels of steel, wood, or clay depending on the wine. No fining, no filtration, no added sulfites. Grapes are destemmed by hand and moved without pumps. This is a wine made without the safety nets of conventional enology.