Notes from Coeur Wine Co.:

"Marco and Michele Schirru are brothers, raised in a small village called Orroli in the central Sardegnan subregion of Sarcidano. It’s not a region currently famous for much – unless you’re an ancient history nerd, in which case you’ll know about the extraordinary architectural ruins in the interior of Sardegna that define the Nuragic civilization, a huge culture predating Roman colonization by 2000 years, flourishing a far cry before what we now understand as Italy. Viticulture has been important in the interior of the island for a long time, but in the last century, it was limited very much to local or community consumption. In the young Schirru brothers’ home village in the 1980s, for example, there were around 900ha of vines. Now, due to decades of people leaving the countryside trying to find work in bigger towns or on the mainland, it’s one tenth that amount.

Marco and Michele, however, through their paternal family, have around 4.5ha of old vines, some 100 years old and more; these have been protected by their grandparents and parents, who produced wine for local consumption since the brothers were children. Over the years, Michele began a specialty pig farm and charcuterie production, focusing on heirloom breeds of animal particular to inland Sardegna, and Marco returned from advanced university studies (philosophy, in particular). The pair of them began to think about their patrimony and heritage, what stands to be lost entirely in rural Sardegna—a peasant way of life, with its certain forms of artisan work that communicate place in a rooted and powerful way.

The wines we have on offer from Schirru are simple in terms of how they’re made: mostly drawn from old plots of bush-trained vines, with a few young cordone speronato plantings in the mix, the varieties are all endemic: Bovale, Nuragus, Vermentino, Monica, and more. Harvests are all done by hand and micro-lots are usually selected in the vineyards to keep the ferments specific and detailed. The style of vinification is not complicated: a light touch of maceration for the whites, traditional red-wine vinification; whites in stainless steel, reds in a mix of neutral barrel and steel. No fining or filtering; SO2 is used in small amounts if needed, usually at racking or bottling when it’s deemed necessary."