# Panevino Vino Bianco Alvas (2022)

- **Producer:** Gianfranco Manca
- **Colour:** white
- **Type:** still
- **Grapes:** Nuragus, Semidano, Vermentino, Vernaccia, Nasco, Malvasia, Retallada
- **Region:** Sardegna, Italy
- **Style:** Natural
- **Alcohol:** 13.0%
- **Average price:** €39
- **Vegan:** Yes
- **Contains sulphites:** No
- **When to drink:** Now or Later
- **Serving temperature:** 10–14 °C
- **Aromas & flavours:** orange, grapefruit, white pepper, blossom, herbaceous, dried apricot, dried fig, honey, caramel

## About this wine

Gianfranco Manca of Azienda Agricola Panevino was an artisan baker before transitioning full-time to winemaking, caring for old neglected vineyards near Nurri in Sardinia. He views living yeast as a vital bridge between breadmaking and winemaking. While Manca changes the cuvée names and hand-drawn labels for his red wines almost every vintage, Alvas—meaning white in the Sardinian language—is his flagship white wine that retains its name and identity year after year.

## Interesting facts

- Before becoming a winemaker, Gianfranco Manca was an artisan baker who treats wild yeast as the vital core of fermentation.
- When changing cellar spaces, Manca applies a mud paste from old cellar walls to preserve the native yeast microbiome.
- Alvas means white in Sardinian and is Manca's only recurring wine name, co-fermenting seven native varieties.

## Food pairing

The rich body, pronounced intensity, phenolic texture, and vibrant acidity of this skin-contact white wine require savory, aromatic, and rich dishes. Mature sheep cheeses, earthy wild mushrooms, and roasted white meats complement its phenolic grip and complex herbaceous profile seamlessly.

## Wine making process

Alvas is crafted from century-old bush vines co-planted at 700 meters elevation on decomposed schist, sandstone, and limestone soils. The seven indigenous white grape varieties are harvested manually and co-fermented spontaneously with wild yeasts in open wooden vats. The wine undergoes roughly three weeks of skin maceration without temperature control, followed by 12 months of aging in neutral oak casks. It is bottled unfined, unfiltered, and without added sulfites.