I sometimes wonder what my cleaning lady thinks of me and then I realise I might inadvertently be holding onto some minor trauma.
You see, many many years ago, when I was starting my career in Paris, I rented a room from another business school student called Géraldine, who was going to spend the semester in Grenoble. Géraldine and the other housemate Rebecca had a prior agreement with a cleaning lady whom Géraldine knew well to come every couple of weeks. Why not, I thought… but when my contract was up, it turned out that the cleaning lady had been reporting back to Géraldine’s parents that I was a drunkard who kept bottles of wine in the bedroom!
In my defence, my bedroom was only divided from the living room by a curtain and it was the only personal space I had. To give you an idea of the dimensions of this flat: the toilet was so small that Rebecca’s boyfriend couldn’t sit down and have the door closed at the same time – yes, that was awkward a few times – and the kitchen was even smaller than the toilet!
So, I’ll get to the point now. This bottle of Daniele Favaro 20.20 has been sitting on my desk for longer than I can remember, waiting for the stars to align and for me to have a few spare minutes to write this post. (That’s why it occurs to me that maybe my current cleaning lady has been keeping track.)
It’s a dry moscato from Piedmont. A great discovery. You probably haven’t heard of Daniele Favaro because 2020 was his first vintage. He seized the opportunity to take over the management of an abandoned farmhouse with 21 hectares in the village Sessame, in the province of Asti. He currently farms 2 hectares of vineyards actively, making 3500 bottles of wine and using the Carussin winery (a 15-20 min drive away) for the time being. The vineyards are in the process of being certified organic, and Daniele is looking at biodynamics in the future.
This is a moscato fermented with indigenous yeasts; it spent a total of 6 months in amphorae, of which the first four months were on the skins. Bottled without clarification or any other intervention (just very slightly filtered, it seems) with next-to-no SO2.
I drank Ca Lustra’s Moscato Secco at lunch today to have a point of comparison. Daniele’s is richer, more confident. The flavour you get both on nose and in the mouth is that same kind of duality that you get from a really good apricot: of sweetness offset against a slightly acidic tang. The colour is perfectly clear and just a bit golden. Mouth is medium to full bodied with a good energy and generous concentration. And the finish? It’s really, really satisfying. For a first-timer, this is surprisingly well made. Beginner’s luck, I wonder. I look forward to tasting the next vintages when they’re released. A little bird told me that there’s an amphora-aged barbera coming soon (from the 2021 vintage.)
My only niggle is that the price of the 20.20 (23 euros, if you buy direct from Daniele on his website) feels a wee bit too high… but Daniele also makes a cheaper moscato vinified in stainless-steel which I should try before I knock it. In any case, I want to try more from Daniele and see how he and his winery progresses. One to watch!
Tasted over various days in Feb/March 2024
Score: ***
Price: €€
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