Cantina Noussan.  Saint-Chrisophe, Valle d'Aosta, IT

After spending some time in the Valle d'Aoste in June 2012, I can say with confidence that Franco Noussan is bottling the freshest, realest, most  un-tinkered with wines in the region. Granted, there is plenty of solid wine made there and due to the virtual absence of barriques and an apparent local affinity for tart, low-abv% reds (i.e. my soft spot), I enjoyed almost everything I drank there...but no bottles we opened even approached the raw purity of Franco's wines. I don't want to waste anybody's time with a bunch of wine nerd babble, but below are a few observations:

Franco Noussan

Franco
Franco is a stocky, barrel-chested, +/-5'8" guy whose energy, enthusiasm, and outward kindness make it easy to forget that he's a grandfather, and well into his 7th decade on the planet. Save a blown out hip, there is nothing "old" about him (and while the pictures don't show it, his facial features and expressions are very similar to my boss Jeff Vierra's).  Franco lives with his wife in a slate-roofed farmhouse above one of his vineyards in the village of Saint-Christophe. He works at a local community college and makes wine when he's not doing that. He works all the vines himself, does all the cellar work himself, and the only assistance he takes is from family during the harvest. Franco is a boss.

Geography/Vineyards
The landscape here is unlike anything I've seen in all my 13yrs of wine travel - The scale and severity of the peaks that loom over the vineyards is just jaw-dropping. I thought I'd seen it all at Foradori, but this takes the cake. Most of the vineyards are in the town of St. Christophe, which is really just a tiny 30-house neighborhood a few miles north of Aosta above the highway between Torino and Mt Blanc. Once you get below the snowline in this part of the region, the landscape is just trees and a cleared land for agriculture. The soil is extremely mineral-poor and rocky, and there is NO water so everybody has to irrigate young vineyards, and we saw very few vines that didn't have some "emergency" irrigation...that's always a bummer for me to see, but whatever. I think it's worth mentioning that I saw zero limestone or granite - In the past, reps have told me about the various soil types of their growers in the region, but I didn't see or hear shit: clay and rocks, that's it. Franco has an amazing patchwork of tiny vineyards: 15 parcels scattered all around a 20min perimeter surrounding his house, with all different grapes, vine ages, aspects etc. The grand total is <9ha, though, so it's still a pretty small operation, even by LDM standards. 

The Cellar
In a small, tight, low-ceilinged cellar dug into the hillside underneath his house, Franco keeps one of the cleanest work spaces I've ever seen in the business. It's evident that the guy doesn't have much in the way of money or resources to work with (his wines sell for <7 €/bottle in Italy), and I suspect this has something to do with why his tanks are gleaming and the grout between his floor tiles is bleached - It almost feels like a hospital. Anyhow, everything is fermented in 200-300L stainless steel tanks, with no new wood for anything (we had one pinot w/ neutral wood, but that was it).  The "flow chart" looks something like: small pneumatic press>small stainless tanks>no starter yeasts or bullshit>no tech, filtering, or any trickery after fermentation. 

Wines
Franco Makes: Pinot Gris, Pinot Nero, Torrette, a blend called "Cuvee de la Cote", and some delicious LH Pinot Gris. We've all worked with the Torrette before, but the "Cuvee" and Pinot Gris really surprised and stuck out to me. Cuvee de la Cote is an old vine blend from parcels near his house in St. Christophe: a little more minerality and fruit than the Torrette. The Pinot Gris was a perfect stylistic mid-point between Alsace & NE Italian "pinot grigio": really simple, and fucking great. 

-AL