Eighty months on the lees. Almost seven years. While this wine rested in bottle, a child born during the harvest learned how to read. Here, time is not a production detail. It is the starting point. The grapes, 100% Pinot Noir, come from the villages of Castino, Borgomale and Lequio Berria in the southern Alta Langa area. The vineyards lie between 400 and 600 metres above sea level, on soils of white clay layered with sand and calcareous marl. At those altitudes, the growing season is cooler and the temperature differences between day and night are more pronounced. As a result, the grapes ripen slowly and steadily, and that slowness translates directly into aromas. This is not rhetoric, but thermodynamics. Fontanafredda is one of the seven founding houses of the Alta Langa Consortium, established in the early 1990s with a precise ambition: to create a Piedmontese traditional method sparkling wine of international stature. The DOCG status officially arrived in 2011, although the roots go much further back. The first person to introduce Pinot Noir to Italy was Marquis Emilio Balbo Bertone di Sambuy, who planted it in his estates in the province of Cuneo during the early decades of the nineteenth century. Pinot Noir is a delicate, restless grape capable of extraordinary things when grown in the right place and handled with confidence. The winemaking follows the Traditional Method: fermentation in stainless steel, secondary fermentation in bottle, and then years of contact with the lees. Disgorgement takes place only after those 80 months. The name “Hundred Sixty-Eight” follows Fontanafredda’s tradition of celebrating its anniversaries with an exceptional sparkling wine. In the glass, it shows a beautiful golden-yellow colour with greenish reflections. The perlage is fine, continuous and persistent. On the nose come aromas of toasted dried fruit, wildflower honey, bread crust and sweet spices. It is the profile of a wine that has lived a long life in bottle and tells its story openly. On the palate it is fresh and savoury, structured but never heavy. Pinot Noir gives body and tension. The finish is long and clean, leaving behind a lingering mineral echo.