2015 Attilio Contini Cannonau di Sardegna Tonaghe

• By Ian D'Agata
  Sardinia on a Roll (Oct 2016), 10/1/2016, (See more on Vinous...)

  (Contini Cannonau Di Sardegna Tonaghe) Login and sign up and see review text.

Full Pull

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull Island Wines, 9/14/2017

  (Contini Tonaghe Cannonau) Hello friends. Sometimes, life gets in the way of living. The trip gets canceled due to family or postponed because of work and suddenly, you’ve never been to Sicily. Or Australia. Or driven from Napa to Sonoma. That is one of the things I love so much about wine—in a world full of responsibilities that sometimes prevent us from doing all of the things we want to do, wine provides a little getaway. Wine lets us into places that we’ve never been, it introduces us to people we’ve never met, and it fills us with the hope of possibility. And nothing does this better than island wines. Wines built and born by the sea, volcanoes, and thousand-year-old civilizations, island wines are rich in ancient history. They are reminiscent of the places they come from—infuenced by the unique terroir and culture of a land removed from the rest of the world by geography. Today, we have six wines for you from three different islands: Santorini, Sardinia, and Sicily. All of these wines represent the island they call home—and they give the drinker just a small peek into the life they could live there. SANTORINI Santorini is an island steeped in history—from the basket-weaved method by which they grow their grapes (known as koulara) to the ancient vines that still stand without fear of phylloxera (the volcanic soil of Santorini has minimal clay, which prevents the disease from growing). Considering how ancient this region is, it’s almost surprising that it’s still one of Greece’s most exciting wine regions. The relationship between the indigenous grapes of the island, the millennia-old volcanic soil, and the sea mists that water the grapes create wines that are intensely mineral-driven, beautiful acidic, and reminiscent of the sea water that feeds them.Sardinia Between a wild, mountainous interior and the sandy beaches that run along the 1,149 miles of coastline, Sardinia’s soil ranges from actual sea sand to cracked, pebbled granite. These broadly ranging types of earth lend themselves to many different grapes, giving Sardinia a robust and divergent portfolio. From sun-soaked Vermentino to gravely Cannonau (the local name for Grenache), Sardinia’s consistency lies in its island influenced wines. These wines would not exist anywhere else—the microclimate terroir of Sardinia makes them possible.See key for # of bottles currently available.Sicily Sicily’s wine scene has flown surprisingly under the radar despite a history dating back to 750 BC. While much of the region has been used to create bulk wine or marsala cooking wine, there are still plenty of small, boutique wineries making extraordinary juice.  Like most islands, the terroir of Sicily is deeply volcanic, which lends minerality, acidity, and a rustic earthiness to the wines.