Nuragus di Cagliari DOC

Sardinia’s workhorse white, made across a wide sweep of the island’s centre and south. Nuragus was for decades the most planted variety on Sardinia, and it is the exact opposite of the island’s three famous old whites.

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. Prevailing winds come from the north-north-west and the south-south-east, and the file credits the sea with an influence on the wine’s scents. Training is guyot and alberello, and it dates viticulture here to the nuragic period — the Bronze Age culture whose stone towers give the grape its name.

Grape Varieties Nuragus, alone. The file describes a wine from pale straw to straw with light green reflections, characteristic, delicate and pleasant on the nose, and running from dry to off-dry. A frizzante is also registered. It is a vigorous, generous, early-ripening variety, which is exactly why it covered so much of the island.

The Volume Grape Nuragus is usually said to have arrived with the Phoenicians, and whatever the truth of that it behaves like a grape selected for reliability rather than flavour: it crops heavily, resists drought, and gives a light, clean, low-alcohol white with lemon and green almond and not a great deal else. Through the twentieth century it was planted more widely than anything else on Sardinia because it never failed. Plantings have fallen sharply since, as growers replaced it with Vermentino, which sells.

The Critical Take Nuragus will not repay the attention that Vernaccia di Oristano or Malvasia di Bosa repay, and pretending otherwise does it no favours. What it is, is an honest, saline, 11-degree white that costs almost nothing and goes with everything the island eats. Yields are the whole story: farmed at the permitted maximum it is watery, and farmed at half of it — which a few growers now do — it has genuine texture and a bitter-almond finish. It is the best cheap wine in Sardinia and nobody should expect more from it than that.

Sardinia’s Four Whites The island holds an unusually complete range: Vernaccia di Oristano under flor, Malvasia di Bosa aromatic and oxidative, Nasco low-yielding and honeyed, and Nuragus as the everyday wine underneath them. The first three are rare and remarkable; the fourth is what people actually drink. A wine region needs both.

At the Table Sardinian everyday food: fregola with clams, grilled fish, pane carasau with tomato and pecorino, sea urchins, and fried anchovies. Serve at 8–10°C and drink the current vintage.

Benchmark Producers Argiolas, Cantine di Dolianova, Cantina Trexenta.