2014 Carolina Gatti ‘El Gat Ros’ Ponte di Piave Cabernet Sauvignon

Price: $20
Region: Ponte di Piave < Veneto < Italy 
Grapes: Cabernet Sauvignon
Vineyard/Cellar Stats: Organic farming; clay-chalk soils with 20 year-old vines; destemmed within 2 hours of picking, maceration and fermentation on their skins for at least 15 days with frequent manual stirring in concrete vats with indigenous yeasts and without temperature control, followed by light pressing. Unfined/unfiltered; 20ppm added SO2; 333 cases made.
Winemaker: Carolina Gatti

We’ve featured Carolina Gatti’s awesome Col Fondo style Prosecco before, so I was thrilled to discover that she makes a small amount of Cabernet Sauvignon as well. Her outfit is a rustic farm in the boondocks of Italy’s Veneto region, where she works the land herself and makes the wine with very little intervention. This is unadulterated, terroir-driven Cabernet Sauvignon, rich and round, with smoky black fruit and spicy pepper, yet somehow light on its feet. Cab that I actually want to drink a whole bottle of – and at only 11% alcohol, this is totally ok.