Nasco di Cagliari DOC

An ancient Sardinian white, made across a wide sweep of the island’s centre and south — parts of the Cagliari and Oristano provinces and the whole of the old Carbonia-Iglesias and Medio Campidano territories. It is made dry and sweet, and the sweet version is the historic one.

The Terroir The registered file describes a wide and geologically complex zone of central-southern Sardinia, with a Mediterranean climate, mild winters and dry summers. It records the prevailing winds precisely — from the north-north-west and the south-south-east — and credits the sea with an influence on the wine’s aromas. Training is guyot and alberello, and the file specifies a reduced bud load and limited vigour of the stocks: this is a low-yielding grape farmed to stay that way.

The History As with Vernaccia di Oristano and Malvasia di Bosa, the file dates viticulture here to the nuragic period, and notes that the interaction of environment and people has been handed down for thousands of years. Nasco is generally taken to derive its name from muscus, musk, and it is one of the varieties usually argued to be genuinely indigenous to Sardinia rather than brought by Phoenicians, Romans, Catalans or Genoese — all of whom left grapes behind on the island.

Grape Varieties Nasco alone. The file describes a wine from straw-yellow to golden, fine and delicate on the nose, pleasant and characteristic on the palate, from dry to sweet, at a minimum 13.5 per cent total alcohol. A liquoroso is also registered.

The Critical Take Nasco is the least fashionable of Sardinia’s three great old whites and the one in the most trouble. Vernaccia di Oristano has flor and a story; Malvasia di Bosa has perfume and a cult; Nasco has neither, and a naturally low yield that makes it expensive to grow. Made dry it is a genuinely good wine — honeyed but not sweet, with orange peel, almond and a bitter close, and more weight than its alcohol suggests. Made sweet it is remarkable, and almost extinct. Plantings are now measured in tens of hectares.

Three Old Whites Sardinia holds three unrelated white traditions that between them have no parallel anywhere in Italy: Vernaccia di Oristano under flor, Malvasia di Bosa aromatic and oxidative, and Nasco sweet or dry. All three collapsed with the market for oxidative and sweet wine, all three survive on a few hundred hectares in total, and all three are cheap. Taken together they are the strongest argument that the island is the most interesting white-wine region in Italy.

At the Table The dry version with bottarga, sea urchin, and aged pecorino sardo; the sweet with seadas, almond biscuits and blue cheese. Serve at 10–12°C dry, 12–14°C sweet.

Benchmark Producers Argiolas, Meloni Vini, Cantine di Dolianova.