The beautiful landscape of Monferrato.
Albarossa! Yes my wine of the Week – or indeed last couple of months as I have not been able to write very much of late due to personal circumstances – is made from the Albarossa grape.
I love discovering wines, regions and grape varieties that are new to me and this was a revelation. Albarossa has a rather muddled history and is not widely used for anything – but on the showing of this one that I tasted recently – it really should.
It is a black grape bred in 1938 by Giovanni Dalmasso in Conegliano, the heart of Prosecco country today. He had intended to cross Nebbiolo and Barber – which both blend together rather splendidly in the Langhe region of Piemonte. DNA testing in 2009 showed that the Nebbiolo used in this crossing though was actually Nebbiolo di Dronero. Dronero is in Piemonte, on the Po some 40km south west of Turin and 20km from the French border, this grape is not actually Nebbiolo at all, but a rare French grape from Ardèche in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of France.
By the way consumers often find this sort of thing mystifying, but actually until very recently grape varieties were pretty unimportant. Historically people just grew what they had always grown and as they didn’t travel they gave it their own local name and remained unaware that the same grape grew elsewhere with a different name. Pretty much every grape variety has a whole raft of names in fact. It is simply that the mass communication and world-wide trade of the last 40 years has meant that it is better to standardise names of grape varieties so that people know what they are getting. It’s a bit like EU regulations if that is not too political a thing to say!
It is fair to say that Albarossa has not really taken off as a grape and there are only four producers and just ten hectares planted in the whole of Italy, but if they all make wines like the one that I tasted then there should be more – a lot more.
Wine map of Piemonte – click for a larger view. Banfi Piemonte is just a few kilometres east of the the lovely townof Acqui Terme in Alessandria province. Non watermarked, high resolution versions are available for a fee.
The beautiful hills around Strevi.
2015 La Lus Albarossa
DOC / PDO Piemonte
Castello Banfi – Banfi Piemonte
Strevi, Piemonte
Italy
Castello Banfi are famous as a Tuscan producer where they craft magnificent Brunello di Montalcino in their hilltop castle and much else besides. Their estates in Piemonte are not so well known, but on this showing they really should be. It is based in the lovely little town of Strevi, in Monferrato, and has been making wine since 1860 in fact. Banfi bought it in the late 1970s not long after the creation of Castello Banfi in Tuscany. In Strevi they farm 45 hectares and make a wide range of wines including traditional method sparklers and a wonderful sweet sparkling red Brachetto d’Aqui that is superb with light chocolate desserts – click here.
This is 100% Albarossa, one of only four such wines in the world, aged for 12 months in French oak barriques.
Oh my this is a enticing wine with a beautifully opaque plum colour, lifted aromas of cherries, plums and redcurrant – that show its Barbera heritage. On top of that is fresh earth, fragrant vanilla, light mocha and spices.
The palate is seductively soft, velvety smooth and round with lovely weight of concentrated fruit making it full-bodied and full-flavoured, but the freshness really shines through making it feel lively and balanced – the Barbera again? Rich plum, cherry, coffee, chocolate, some earth and leather and a creaminess to the texture all make this complex and joyful. The tannins are sinfully soft and the whole thing is utterly, utterly delicious – 92/100 points.
The rolling hills around Acqui Terme.
I tasted this wine the other week with my first Christmas dinner of the year – really. It was a perfect match with everything you expect in a classic British Christmas dinner and was so drinkable. There was a largish group of us there tasting all sorts of different wines with the Christmas dinner, but this was widely thought to be the best match.
Available in the UK at around £18.99 per bottle from Noel Young Wines, Quaff Fine Wine,Weavers of Nottingham, Wined Up Here, Hedonism Wines, Tannico.co.uk.
Quentin Sadler's Wine Page 