Surrau Limizzani Vermentino di Gallura DOCG 2020

Although Vermentino has come of age as a varietal with increasing waves of this tasty grape variety lapping upon our shores, Sardinian wines still remain relatively unknown in America. The 2020 Surrau Limizzani Vermentino di Gallura may just be the ambassador Vermentino needs to change that. Graced with a brilliant sun-splashed color, a beguiling floral bouquet of spring and summer flowers, and bursts of mouth filling flavors girded with fresh acidity, delicious minerality, and pinpoint precision, the 2020 Surrau Limizzani Vermentino di Gallura engages all of the senses from the moment it is poured. The wine’s enticing bouquet carries delightfully onto the palate, where laser-like fruit and mineral flavors fill the mouth, enlivening the palate and making subsequent sips obligatory. Crisp acidity with a citrus twist complements the wine’s sleek textured fruit, providing significant length and a long refreshing finish. For optimal enjoyment we suggest chilling Surrau’s unique and refreshing Limizzani Vermentino to 38-42° F, then allowing it to slowly emerge in the glass as it sheds its initial chill. Anticipated maturity: 2021-2023. Enjoy!

As Sardinia is an island surrounded by a sea rich in the delicacies of the deep, seafood provides many of the favored accompaniments to Surrau’s 2020 Limizzani Vermentino di Gallura. Grilled or sautéed calamari in the company of a heady sauce makes a wonderful starter and a delightful companion to this tasty Vermentino. Pan seared halibut, sea bass, or rockfish served with mushroom risotto also warrants two thumbs up. Wood-fired oysters served with sautéed spinach, naturally cured bacon, and a creamy cheese sauce over a bed of organic greens provides another winning accompaniment. Equally satisfying is an authentic Salade Niçoise. Seafood lasagna with delicate layers of pasta, swordfish, salmon, mussels, cured tomatoes, spinach, and fine herbs in a saffron seafood broth also wins the day. For those not beholden to seafood, consider Mediterranean Chicken Salad: grilled chicken served over a bed of organic greens with toasted walnuts, grapes, and wild herbs. Buon appetito!

Surrau takes its name from the Surrau Valley, which lies in the heart of the Gallura DOCG, just 15 minutes from Sardinia’s Costa Smeralda and the gleaming, sun-splashed Mediterranean Sea. Surrau is the handiwork of Tino Demuro, a native Sardinian whose family, which includes 11 siblings, have worked Sardinia’s stony vineyards for generations. In 2001, Tino Demuro, a successful construction company owner, decided to invest in the Gallura appellation and built a state of the art winery dedicated to the production of Vermentino, Gallura’s special and most traditional grape variety.

With the goal of making the finest Vermentino di Gallura, Tino hired famed consulting oenologist Beppe Caviola and together they assembled a young dynamic team, consisting of agronomist Fabio Isoni and oenologist Mario Siddi, to make world class Vermentino. We invite you to taste the team’s exceptional 2020 Surrau Vermentino di Gallura and see why Surrau is one of the leading purveyors of Sardinia’s award winning wine.

Vermentino is one of Italy’s finest yet least known white grape varieties. Although not nearly as ubiquitous as Pinot Grigio, Trebbiano, Malvasia, or other white-skinned varietals, Vermentino, nonetheless, flourishes along Italy’s Mediterranean coastline where it produces fine, floral-scented wines endowed with crisp acidity. This is especially true in Liguria, where it often takes the name Pigato, and on the island of Sardinia. Corsica and the south of France are also good sources of Vermentino, though one would hardly guess that Vermentino thrives in France, as Vermentino is known almost exclusively in France as Rolle where it figures in many of the white wines of southern France.

Set afloat from the rest of Europe, Sardinia lounges in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea surrounded by emerald colored seas and fringed with white sandy beaches and sequestered coves. Rugged and dry, this mountainous island is second only to Sicily in size among the islands of the Mediterranean, and like its larger sibling, Sardinia has known the world’s conquerors and the ever shifting currents of world power. What have endured are wine and an ancient culture born of millennia amidst the crossroads of the world’s most traveled sea.

Home to thousands of nuraghi, ancient structures built by a Bronze Age civilization that date from the 15th and 16th centuries B.C. as well as an abundance of wilderness populated by flora and fauna that exist nowhere else in Europe, it would be easy to overlook the viticultural treasures of Sardinia. Although an autonomous region of Italy since the 18th century, Sardinian wines bear little resemblance to their mainland counterparts. Italy’s most important and ubiquitous grapes (Barbera, Sangiovese, Nebbiolo, Pinot Grigio, and Trebbiano among others) hardly make an appearance in Sardinia. Instead, Malvasia, Muscat, and Vermentino dominate Sardinia’s white wine scene, with Vermentino di Gallura the only Sardinian wine awarded DOCG status, Italy’s much coveted guarantee of authenticity. Connonau (Grenache), Carignano (Carignan) and Spain’s Bobal proliferate among the red varietals on the island. Cabernet Sauvignon is also currently finding favor. Although one would think that red wines would be Sardinia’s enological claim to fame, Vermentino, crisp, white, and flavorful, has come front and center to serve as Sardinia’s oenological ambassador to the world.