Why Sommeliers Are Obsessed With This $89 Italian Wine

I'm about to open a wine that most sommeliers would pick over a $200 Barolo. It costs $89 and is from a region in Italy that 99% of wine drinkers have never heard of. This is Carima. I'm certified sommelier at John Hollins and today's whole bottle review might be the most important one I've ever done, especially if you love Italian wine, like I do. Because this wine right here, the 2017 Luigi Fernanda Eciada Bianco Carima, has been called Nebbiolo at its purest. It's most energetic and it's most aromatic. I'm putting it head to head against a Barolo to see if that's true. If you're into wine, or if you're just getting into wine, this is something you've gotta see. Barolo is called the king of Italian reds and with good reason. Everyone knows Barolo. It's got the fame, it's got the prestige, it's got the price tag. If you walk into a wine shop and say, give me your best Italian red, nine times out of ten, they're reaching for a Barolo. And why wouldn't they? Barolo is fantastic and as you can see, I love it myself. I drink a lot of Barolo. But 300 miles north of Barolo's rolling Lange hills, there's a tiny DOC called Carima. And when I say tiny, I mean tiny. We're talking about a handful of producers. The vines are planted at altitude and turned on wild, ancient stone pillars called pilun that absorb heat during the day and radiate it back at night, helping with ripening. These vines are basically clinging to the side of the Alps in the shadow of Mont Blanc. The Ferrando family has been making wine here for generations and their importer, Neil Rosenthal, a guy who has access to top bargaining drawing crew, everything said, and I quote, if I could only drink one wine for the rest of my life, it would be Carima. That's a massive statement. So today, I brought a gorgeous Barolo and I'm going to taste it blind against this Carima. I want to say, I want to know, is this wine as good as they say? And more importantly, is it actually better than Barolo? Look, I'm skeptical because I'm a Barolo lover, as you know, you saw. But hey, we're going to find out the easy way. Here's the thing that'll blow your mind about Carima. The soil up there, it's basically eroded rock, pure granite and moraine. That's not vineyard land, at least you wouldn't think it would be. That's mountain. And yet the Nebbiolo grown there has a finesse and an energy that a lot of Barolo wine makers would kill for. Quick aside, if you're the kind of person who likes discovering wines like this beautiful Carima that most people will never know about, hey, subscribe to my channel. I do whole bottle reviews every week, real wines, real opinions, no BS. So let's get back into the wine. All right. So here's how the Barolo versus Carima is going to work. I've got a fellow wine professional pouring these into identical glasses, label glass A and glass B. I don't know which one's which. We've got the 2017 Ferrando Carima Echado Bianca, 89 bucks. And we've got the 2021 Agricola Brandini Del Camune Della Mora from Della Mora, Barolo. Same grape, Nebbiolo. Same region of Italy, Piemonte. Different terroir, different altitude, different story. So let's see what my palate says. Okay. We've got the wines poured. We've got the bottles in the bag. Let's get started. So here's how we're going to do this. We're going to go through site first. We're going to look at each wine. Then we're going to compare them side-by-side to see what the key differences are. Now I'm going to nose glass A, which is this one. Now I'm going to nose glass B. Now I kind of nose them side-by-side together. And then I'm going to make my call. So I'm going to tell you what I'm going to make my calls on before I do this. Look, I don't know if I'm going to get this right. This is a little bit of a hard call, an advanced sommelier, master, something like that. But there's a couple of things that I do know. Is the Barolo was a little bit younger, 2021, and it's also made for both young drinking and early drinking. Kind of a really cool new style. The Carima is a 2017. So it's going to be an older wine. So I would expect a little bit more orange around the rim, but you got to be careful. You never can tell. Because Carima is at higher altitude, I'm going to expect it to be higher acid. Both are going to be high acid wine. I'm going to expect Carima to be higher acid than the Barolo, and I'm going to expect it to be less tannic because of the soil. But am I going to be able to see very high tannin versus just high tannin, very high acid versus just high acid? Hey, the only way to do it, let's get in and start doing it. And we're going to start with Sight. Got some white paper right here. Move these bottles kind of out to the side here. And let's start with Glass A. Let's see what we got here. So Glass A is a, oh wow, that's a gorgeous, almost ruby color, a little bit of orange around it, several rings, hot pink. It almost looks like a Pinot Noir. So this one could have a little bit of age on it. I can see my hand through it, so it sort of looks light, not much extraction. Let's have a look at Glass B and see what we got with that one. Oh yeah, this one definitely looks older. This one is orange looking in the glass. It kind of looks like a beautiful sunset. I really hope that comes through on the camera. I mean, my God in heaven, it's just a light orange, deep orange, darker orange, that tequila sunrise. That's a gorgeous looking wine. So let's have a look at them side by side. I really hope the camera can pick this up because there is a definite difference. Remember, both Nebbiola, one Barolo, one Karima. One of them is much more of a ruby, one of them is just a gorgeous orange sunset. So hey, let's have a look at the nose and see which one's which. I really get excited about wines like this because both of these offer a fantastic experience and you're kind of down to making your calls based on subtle differences, but both of these are going to be really, really good. So on this one immediately, a lot of red fruits, raspberry, cranberry, a little punga in it. A little bit of tar, what we call VA, volatile acidity. To me that comes across as balsamic sometimes. A little bit of floral on there as well, which we should expect from a Barolo. Oh gosh, that nose changes each time it swirls around. That's always a sign of a well-made wine. Both of these are well-made wines. So let's have a look at our sunrise, a nose of our sunrise wine. I mean, my God. Wow, that's got kind of a softer feel to it. It sounds funny to say when an aroma, but this is a little more pungent and sharp. This is a little softer, which can be a little bit from age. Yeah. You get the little bit of licorice, a little bit of dried fruits in there. Maybe like a little bit of a dried cherry coming through. Definitely some floral. Let's have one more nose, we'll do them side by side and see. A little bit of leather coming through as well. Yeah. Both of these have gorgeous noses and I'm drinking these, as you can see, in burgundy glasses because it gives us a wide bowl and it narrows at the top and I dropped my Nebbiolo glass and I don't have one. So this is why. So let's do them side by side and see. Definitely the thing that jumps out, I definitely get more VA on this one, A, more volatile acidity than on this one. This is a little more pungent and sharp, a little softer and rounder. I would say definitely this is more of a dried fruit character that I'm smelling. This is more of a ripe fruit character. Yeah. Both of these are quite enjoyable. Not enough to really make a call. I can make a guess based on age, but for wines like these, we're not going to guess on this. We're going to give each one the full grid treatment to go through and see because these are both well-made wines that really deserve it. So let's have a taste of glass A. So that's definitely a high acid wine. Definitely a high tannin wine. Ripe red fruit character. Ripe cherry, ripe raspberry. Definitely some leather coming around on the back. A little bit of a tar. And when I get my nose with you and I'm taking a sip, that VA really kind of tingles in my nose a little bit. So this is a nice one. Yeah, I'm not getting the tannin around my tongue a little bit. Although this isn't like a grab you type of tannin. This is a nice kind of softer, well-integrated tannin. So let's have a taste from glass B. That's so gorgeous. That's so gorgeous. Definitely a higher acid in this one. You just definitely get the tartness. My mouth is really watering like crazy. You can really get the acid that comes through in this one. It's gorgeous. There's some dried cherry in there. There's some tobacco in there. There's some earth in there. There's a little bit of rose on the nose. I don't get the VA, the volatile acidity that I get in there. So I would say that, you know, look, I think this is actually a pretty easy call to make. I'm going to see that the B is a crema based on the acid in this one is noticeably higher than in this one. But two, if I look at them both and we just look at our gorgeous, beautiful sunrise wine in there, we can see that's a higher elevation, cooler climate, and it's been in the bottle longer in 2017 versus 2021. Whereas this one, if you can see, it's a beautiful ruby, not quite as acidic, a little more tannic. No doubt about that noticeable. But here's the thing that's interesting. Barolo and Nebula is known for being very tannic. Both of these tannins are actually very well-integrated. I'm not just getting something that's like sand in my mouth. It's really well-structured. Could I confuse this one for Pinot? I could see where there could be some confusion. It depends. I don't know if something like Pomard or something like that. I get the tannins on this one around my tongue, so I might still lean toward Barolo, but I know what this one is. And actually, the producer, really great producer. They're known for making early expressive fruity wines that can age as well. So they're kind of like a combination between modernist, traditionalist, just really exciting stuff. So anyway, let's take the bag off and see. I'm pretty sure this is Agarcoli Barolo and this is a crema. Let's just kind of make sure with this. You have a 50-50 chance, but when you use your theory and you kind of know about each one. Yeah, so this is a Barolo right here. When you know what's supposed to be in each one, you have a pretty good chance of making it. It's when you put all the pieces together, sight, nose, and palate. So the two main clues to this is obviously sight. We have our Sunrise Carima, but also too, this is just noticeably high acidity too. And some people may say, okay, how do you tell acidity? What's the difference? You can do it on your mouth watering, but honestly, this was just like really, really tart. And this one was like mildly tart. So anyone that's, you know, kind of tasting, you're going to be able to pick it up. Both of these wines are just absolutely enjoyable, kind of in their own way. And I'm looking forward to drinking both of them. But let me ask you this question. You've probably heard of Barolo, but have you ever heard of a Carima? I mean, have you ever heard of Carima before this video? I mean, look, let me know in the comments, it's a tiny DLC, not even DLCG, but it's something that I wish was out there. They just make beautiful wines. And look, if you've got an underdog of a Barolo versus underdog Nebbiolo, Carima, Lange, hey, I want to hear it. There's some fantastic, very good value Nebbiolos out there. You know, I don't think it's going to compete with a 50-year-old Barolo or anything like that, but there's just some gorgeous Nebbiolos out there. So look, if you get one, I want to hear it. In the comments of this channel, one of my favorite things to do is go through and kind of converse back and forth with fellow wine lovers on this channel, because I got to tell you what, I mean, these are some of the best wine conversations on YouTube. You guys out there know wine. I mean, there's no doubt about that. You guys are talking about wines, and when I hear it, man, I want to drink that. So please, I want to hear from you. Let me know. So let me give you the quick start of Carima so you can enjoy it for yourself. It's an ancient region, one of the smallest and most remote DLCs in Italy. Not even a DLCG, just a DLC, but it should be a DLCG. So the pilon, the stone pillars, which are unique to Carima, they define the place. What they do is they absorb the solar heat during the day, and they radiate it back out overhead at night. And so the vines rest on something called a tupin, T-U-P-I-N, which is just a wooden trellis, but they're there to absorb the heat, to reabsorb the heat that's radiated out from the pilon, and that causes ripening at night. But the cool climate and the acidity, the cool climate and the elevation preserve the acidity, which gives us such a beautiful wine. And so Carima is a high-altitude Nebbiolo at 350 to 700 meters elevation. So Barolo, most Barolos are usually between 250 to 450. So this is a much higher elevation wine, and that's why it shows up in the acidity. You can just tell. Higher altitude generally means higher acidity, and this is what we had there. So the Ferrando family are generational winemakers. They're stubbornly traditional. And the 2017 Vintage, great for us, riper than usual, so you get those beautiful, ripe red fruits in there. And it gives the wine a little extra dimension on a sort of light, energetic frame, and I kind of got that in it. The fruits come across as ripe. You don't have to hunt for them like you do in some Nebbiolos. Those things are right there. Very beautiful. And so the tasting notes from experts. Sweet dried cherry. I don't know if I'd say sweet, but yeah, dried cherry in there. Tobacco, cedar? Yeah, I would say some in there. Mint, licorice. I'd add a little bit of leather and earth in there. Fantastic floral and rose, petal bouquet. I didn't get an enormous amount of roses in there, but as I go through this bottle, I'm going to see. Silky smooth? Absolutely. Lower tannin than Barolo? Yep. Higher acid than Barolo? Yep. Checks all the marks. So, you know, in this case, it looks like the experts actually made a good call for once. Experts. So here's the kicker. This wine ages beautifully. Neil Rosenthal tasted a 1964 Ferrando Crema. I was born in 71 and said it was amazingly fresh, vibrant, earthy, meaty. That's 60 years of aging. I'm only 55. By the way, if you're loving wines like this and you want to know what else is out there that most people are sleeping on or don't know anything about, I put together a free magical wine guide. It's my personal picks for hidden wine gems that will absolutely change how you think about wine. I put the link in the description. Just send me your email. It's yours. Absolutely free. Now, let me get back to both of these as fresh eyes, or should I say fresh palate, now that I know which is which. I'm going to give it an initial sip and swallow score. I'm going to drink this whole Crema tonight. As you can see, this bottle was actually opened by a fellow wine professional. The Barolo was actually Coravin. I'm going to drink that at a later date. I'm not going to do a two-four with that tonight, but I'm going to drink the Crema and give you my whole bottle review. My initial sip and swallow score on the Crema, I'm going to give it a 97, but I think this has room to dramatically increase. Maybe as high as a 98.5. That's what I'm going to get. That's what we're going to get out of this. It's not just the wonderful start to this. Each sip is going to change and evolve as we go through the bottle, and this is going to give an experience. What I love about the Nebbiolos, they can get into your mind. They can evoke emotions. They can evoke memories. They can really take you on a very unique journey, particularly a high acid wine like that. Initial sip and swallow score, 97, but we'll see how this is going to change and evolve as I go through it. Now, I'm going to give you my whole bottle review. As good as this wine is on the initial few sips, and it is a good wine, we're not going to know how good it really is until we go through the bottle. A few people understand this. How does it change? How does it evolve? Does it evoke emotion and feeling? I think it will. Does it take us on a journey? I think it will. We'll see. So, stay tuned for the answer and my whole bottle review of the Karima coming up right now. I have returned, fully recovered from my wine hangover, and ready to give you my whole bottle review of what I'm going to call the gorgeous sunset wine because of the color in the glass, the 2017 Ferranda La Chiada from Karima. And wow, what a unique wine this was. So, as you can see, the wine has been consumed and is ready for review. And I have taken notes as I went through this bottle because it was quite a unique and enjoyable bottle. So, the first thing I'm going to say about this is, this is a very high acid wine. This is actually what defined this wine. As we were going through the initial sip and swallow score in the video, and I did the comparison between the Barolo and this one, obviously we thought because of the higher elevation and because of the soil that this was going to be a very high acid wine. It was a very high acid wine, and to me, that was very enjoyable. It was lean, it was light, it was lithe. But because of the stone pillars in Karima, the pilun that radiate the sun's energy back up into the vines at night, we got a lot of nice red fruits there. And I really liked that. They were a little cherry, a little raspberry. They weren't quite underripe, they were just ripe. Definitely not overripe. We're getting anything close to that. I mean, this is a high altitude, high acid wine. But they were there just enough to sit on top of that wonderful acidity. Now, like I said, this wine did not come across as particularly tannic. It is lower tannic than the Barolos, but I still thought there was a nice tannic structure for everything to sit on. But the thing that I really liked about this, I just kept coming back to the color of this wine. It's kind of funny, you don't think of the wine experience as looking at the glass and the color, but I kept holding the thing up to the light to let it catch the light. It was just reminding me of a gorgeous sunset the whole time. Now, as we got into this, did we get a lot of evolution of this wine? No, we didn't get a significant amount of it. I would say there was a mild evolution. I felt that the fruits did get brighter. A little bit more leather came out. It was well integrated with the tannin. There was a little bit of licorice in there. Sometimes on the nose I could get a whiff of floral. Not as much as advertised, but I thought it was definitely there. Maybe a little bit of balsamic, but everything was light, harmonious, and in balance. It was a very slow evolution as we went through this wine. Glass 2 was not appreciably different from Glass 1. There was a glacial slow evolution into Glass 3, where everything began to come together a little bit. This is a very light wine. This is not like a heavy wine, not like a Pomerol or anything, where you're really going to feel the two wines come together. It's a little bit of a floating, light mouthfeel. I really like it. But the thing that I kept coming back to, I thought it was a really, really neat part of this wine, was I kept coming back to how it looked in the glass. I'd take a sip. I'd hold it up to the light. I'd just look at that gorgeous sunset. I sat out in the backyard here in Texas. We've got some great sunsets going on right now. When I looked at it, I was drinking that wine at the same time. I could hold up the glass. I could look at the sunset and say, wow, they look pretty close to the same. I thought that was a really unique component. Because in wine you always think about its aromas, its flavors, its palate, its nose. The sight in this one really elevated this a little bit. It didn't take me on an emotional journey. I didn't get rid of any old feelings or anything come up. But it was a nice, slowly evolving Nebbiolo that had that bonus of being able to look at it from start to finish and say, wow, not only can I tell I'm drinking a gorgeous wine, I can see that I'm drinking a gorgeous wine. That was something that was actually really surprising to me that I derived a lot of enjoyment from as I went through this bottle. I gave this an initial sip and swallow score of 97. I'm going to give it half a point upgrade. Not a lot of evolution, not a lot of feelings, not a lot of emotion. But because of the sight, the bonus with that, which actually that did kind of bring back a couple of great memories of sunsets past and the times that I spent with them. Because of that, looking at that in the glass, I'm going to give this half a point and I'm going to go with 97.5 with this. For an $89 bottle of wine, this was absolutely fantastic value. I highly recommend that you try a bottle from Karima Ferranda. This is actually the second time I've had a wine from this producer. Loved it the first time, loved it even more the second time, so this definitely gets a high rating for me. Now, what's better than one whole bottle review? Another whole bottle review of a very unique wine coming up right now.