Winemaker Notes
Intense ruby red, verging on garnet with complex notes of ripe blackberries, blueberries, mellow spices, myrtle, tobacco, and chocolate.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A very attractive Sardinian red that combines great ripe plums with a hot, dry-earth character and has a very food-friendly balance of ripeness and soft tannins. Drink now with autumn or winter dishes.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Cannonau di Sardegna Noras is in fact made with 90% Cannonau and 10% Carignano. This is a terrific mid-level wine that shows good value and an accessible style that makes it perfect for just about any homemade pasta, especially a Sardinian malloreddus alla campidanese: a shell-shaped pasta with a sausage and pecorino ragù. The wine offers pretty primary fruit with blackberry, wild cherry and rose, all backed by subtle smoke and wet earth. This vintage delivers a very ripe, succulent and fruity character. It's good fun all around.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: Is this Grenache—Garnacha from Spain—or its Cannonau from Sardegna? Some say that this Italian grape is the same as Grenache, but some are not so sure. The important reality is that the 2015 Santadi Noras Cannonau di Sardegna is quite appealing. TASTING NOTES. This wine is not for the faint of heart; it packs some power. Its aromas and flavors of black fruit, dried tobacco, and savory spices should pair it well with a rosemary-infused, black pepper accented rotisserie leg of lamb. (Tasted: July 24, 2018, San Francisco, CA)
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Wine Spectator
This round, medium-bodied red is well-knit and balanced, with supple layers of pureed black cherry, plum tart and spiced orange flavor framed by creamy tannins. Elegant. Drink now through 2024.
Grenache thrives in any warm, Mediterranean climate where ample sunlight allows its clusters to achieve full phenolic ripeness. While Grenache's birthplace is Spain (there called Garnacha), today it is more recognized as the key player in the red blends of the Southern Rhône, namely Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Côtes du Rhône and its villages. Somm Secret—The Italian island of Sardinia produces bold, rustic, single varietal Grenache (there called Cannonau). California, Washington and Australia have achieved found success with Grenache, both flying solo and in blends.
Hailed for centuries as a Mediterranean vine-growing paradise, multiple cultures over many centuries have ruled the large island of Sardinia. Set in the middle of the Tyrrhenian Sea, the Phonoecians, Ancient Rome, and subsequently the Byzantines, Arabs and Catalans have all staked a claim on the island at some point in history. Along the way, these inhabitants transported many of their homeland’s prized vines and today Sardinia’s modern-day indigenous grape varieties claim multiple origins. Sardinia’s most important red grapes—namely Cannonau (a synonym for Grenache) and Carignan—are actually of Spanish origin.
Vermentino, a prolific Mediterranean variety, is the island’s star white. Vermentino has a stronghold the Languedoc region of France as well as Italy’s western and coastal regions, namely Liguria (where it is called Pigato), Piedmont (where it is called Favorita) and in Tuscany, where it goes by the name, Vermentino. The best Vermentino, in arguably all of the Mediterranean, grows in Sardinia's northeastern region of Gallura where its vines struggle to dig roots deep down into north-facing slopes of granitic soils. These Vermentino vines produce highly aromatic, full and concentrated whites of unparalleled balance.
Today aside from its dedication to viticulture, Sardinia remains committed to maintaining its natural farmlands, bucolic plains of grazing sheep and perhaps most of all, its sandy, sunny, Mediterranean beaches.