Ca' d'Gal
Tucked up in the Valdivilla hills, about 15 kilometres west of Barbaresco and in the commune of Santo Stefano Belbo, is where you will find Sandro Boido’s Ca’ d’Gal, source of some of Piemonte’s most inspiring Moscato d’Asti. Surrounding the Ca’ d’Gal farmhouse – which multi tasks as a very attractive B&B and restaurant – lies the Estate’s 6.5-hectare amphitheatre of sandy, calcareous slopes. These sand-rich slopes – the kind that dominate this commune – are prized for complexing Moscato’s heady perfume and have become regarded as one of Moscato d’Asti’s blue-ribboned terroirs. It’s no surprise then that this commune is home to the highest concentration of Moscato vines in Piemonte – almost all of the vineyards are planted with this variety. In the Ca’ d’Gal vineyards there is also a prized plot of old, pre-clonal, 55-year-old vines where the soil strays into seams of limestone-rich blue tufa. The fruit from this wine is bottled as a separate old vines bottling: a complex, frothy testament to Moscato, the landscape and the people who make this special place work.
If it was Ca’ d’Gal’s modus operandi to confront drinkers assumptions about what Moscato can and should be all about, then Boido is certainly going about it the right way. He is probably best known for releasing single vineyard Moscato with age although the story goes much further than this. In line with many of Europe’s finest growers, Boido has eliminated herbicides and pesticides in the vineyard and he also crops Ca’ d’Gal’s Moscato vines at yields that are well below the permitted norm (circa 100 hl/ha). In fact yields for the Luminae bottling are around the same as a conscientious Champagne grower’s, and dip towards 40 hl/ha (i.e., grand cru Burgundy levels) for the old-vines cuvée. Another key to Boido’s game changing, aromatically complex wines is his no-hold-barred approach to grape ripeness. Against-the-fashion, Boido crafts his wines from well-ripened grapes picked “yellow like polenta”, like the old days (as opposed to the half-green fruit that goes to supply much of the commercial Moscato d’Asti for the international market). That he manages to work with super ripe fruit without loss of acidity and freshness is a testament to the health of his vines, the low yields with which he works, and the fact that he hand harvests. The wines are also vinified using spontaneous ferments (a rarity these days) in closed vat with extended lees contact, and, in another statement of intent, Boido only bottles in full bottles—half bottles compromise quality and so they are refused (no half measures here!)
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