Pusole Bianco, Vermentino 2021

Its mineral focus and texture really, really set it apart from the seemingly light and bland styles of Vermentino that are pretty much all over the rest of Sardinia. It's a wonderful food wine and is richer, nuttier, more complex and just 'better' because of the ideals and ability of the Pusole family.

Flavours of ripe citrus, green herbs, garrigue, bay leaf and a stunning salinity that really makes you want to find more, really well-made versions of this grape. That might be tricky. These chaps have patiently found very difficult to cultivate granitic soils for their vines and truly believe that this is what gives them year after year, the quality that is delivered in the glass. As they say on the bottle, it is 'to be drunk in good company'.

The grapes are harvested by hand from 5 hectares of young vines and managed very carefully in the winery: fermented in stainless steel tanks, the temperature is totally uncontrolled during the ferment, which is the key component to its feral sensations. Brilliant stuff. The wine is then bottled unfiltered, typically by about March or April each year after harvest.

Run by the fourth generation of the Pusole family, this organic estate is renowned for its gentle approach to viticulture with wines that reflect terroir of this fascinating island. They are based in the middle of the island on the outskirts of the eastern port town of Santa Maria Navarese. They are about two hours north of Cagliari and three hours east of Alghero. The soils around them vary from pebbly beach-like sand at the east to the decomposed granite as they approach the immense Gennargentu mountains to the west. In fact it is the sea and the mountains that provide cooling breezes that balance the latent heat of the Tyrrhenian island.

Loredana Pusole and her two brothers, Lorenzo and Roberto, are keen to maintain balance in the vineyard and grow cover crops between the rows of vines to encourage insect life and help retain moisture during the hot summers. These crops in turn are kept under control by wild flocks of sheep that roam the vineyards without a care for a grape to be shared amongst them all.

The family's approach is genuinely holistic and is at the heart of all that they do on their estate. A slightly slower pace of life, perhaps, but one that yields wines truly representative of this beautifully rugged and unspoiled part of Sardinia.