Wine of the Week – A is for Albarossa

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.

 

Wine of the Week – a fine & delicious Gavi

The beautiful landscape of Gavi.

Many of you who read these pages regularly will know how much I like Italian wines. Some of you will also know that I bang on rather a lot about how much better wines are nowadays than in the past – especially the whites from places that are traditionally well known for quality reds in the past, places like Spain, Portugal and Italy.

Italian white wines are generally of a very high standard in my experience and far more interesting and sophisticated than their reputation would have you believe. In recent months I have enjoyed some superb Soave, Colli Berici, Verdicchio – and click here , Lugana, Gambellara, Fiano, Falanghina and Greco from Campania, as well as those wonderful crisp dry whites of Etna in Sicily.

Gavi is another interesting Italian white wine and is now quite widely available, certainly more than most of the wines mentioned above, and has almost broken free of the Italian ghetto to be known as a style in its own right. It is nowhere near as famous as Pinot Grigio or Sancerre of course, but you occasionally get it mentioned in novels or hear the name in television dramas. However, as with most wines, there is Gavi and there is Gavi. It will never let you down in my experience, but can, like so many wines, occasionally be a bit dull, dilute even. The answer to that is to drink a well made wine from a good producer. Sadly most of the time price is a pointer to quality, there are exceptions, but on the whole never drink the bargain basement version of a well known wine – or if you do, manage your expectations.

Wine map of Piemonte – click for a larger view. Non watermarked, high resolution versions are available for a fee.

Gavi itself is a town in Piemonte, north west Italy, but until 1815 its powerful fortress formed the northern defences of the Republic of Genoa. Luckily, thanks to the EU and European integration – a little bit of politics – war has left this place alone since 1945 and today Gavi is a rather lovely, sleepy little town of narrow streets, café lined squares and those amazing fortifications of old.

Gavi fortress.

Nowadays of course it’s fame lies in the wine that bears its name. Gavi is the only important wine made from the Cortese grape. There is a tiny bit here and there, but just this tiny patch of Piemonte specialises in it. Cortese is also grown in the nearby Colli Tortonesi and Monferrato regions as well as in the provinces of Cuneo, Asti and the wider areas of Alessandria to make the slightly more humble wines labelled as Cortese del Piemonte DOC. Outside Piemonte Cortese can be found in Lombardy’s Oltrepò Pavese region and it is also cultivated around Lake Garda where it is used to produce Garda Cortese as well as being used in the blend of Bianco di Custoza.

I have also had one Cortese from Australia that was very enjoyable, but I am surprised, given what nice wines can be made from Cortese, how little the grape is grown and known around the world – although it is slowly becoming more widely known.

11 communes, plus Gavi itself, make the wine called Gavi and despite its popularity there is no such wine as Gavi di Gavi and that term should not appear on labels. If a wine comes from fruit grown in just one of the communes able to make Gavi then it can be labelled as Gavi del Commune di Gavi – or Rovereto, Bosio, or Carrosio, or Capriata d’Orba, or Francavilla Bisio, or Novi Ligure, or Parodi Ligure, or Pasturana, or San Cristoforo, or Serravalle Scrivia, or Tassarolo.

What’s more these form a single DOCg, they are indivisible and are considered to all be of the same quality – unlike Chianti and Chianti Classico for instance which are separate DOCgs.

The countryside around Gavi is quite beautiful and the slightly high land – around 300 metres asl – and the surrounding mountains channel cooling breezes off the sea and the nearby alps to cool down the vines and create really good conditions for white wine. While the southern exposure ensures they catch the sun to get excellent ripeness. Add all that together with the white wine technology that came in during the 1970s-1980s and you can see why Gavi has made a name for itself in recent years. It cannot be a hinderance either that nearby Alba, Asti, Barolo and Barbaresco all enjoy reputations for high quality wine and so the infrastructure for export is close at hand.

Anyway, long story short, the other day I drank a stunning bottle of Gavi that spoke to my soul and so I have made it my Wine of the Week.

2016 Rolona

DOCG Gavi del Comune di Gavi

Castellari Bergaglio

Gavi

Piemonte

Italy

I really like the wines of Castellari Bergaglio and have been meaning to write about them for a while. They produce exemplary Gavis and what’s more make a fascinating range too. Ardé, their traditional method sparkling Gavi is very good and their standard Gavi, called Salluvi, is exceptional at the price. However the wineries true stars are their special cuvées. Pilin is made from partially dried grapes, Fornaci is a Gavi del Commune di  Tassarolo and Rovereto is a Gavi del Commune di Rovereto. They even make a sweet passito wine called Gavium, so produce a lot of varity for a single grape variety grown on just 12 hectares.

Castellari Bergaglio was founded in 1890 and today is run by 4th generation Marco Bergaglio and although he clearly loves the place his wine comes from and is steeped in the area, he also likes to experiment and push the boundaries of what constitutes a Gavi. He tries to balance tradition and modernity to great effect in my opinion.

The fermentation is long and slow at moderate rather than cool temperatures – 18-20˚C, which allows for lovely flavours and delicate textures to develop on the palate. This textural component is helped by the lees ageing.

Marco Bergaglio (right) in his vineyards – photo courtesy of the winery.

The Rolona is perhaps the most pure of his range and indeed the Rolona vineyard has chalky soil. The aromas are delicately floral, orchard fruit, straw, perhaps a touch of dry honey, earth and wet stone. The palate is crisp with an underlying richness, succulence and concentration that shows what a high wire act the wine is. It is detailed and beautifully crafted in miniature. The minerality really suits it, as does the lemon and tangerine edged citrus and the sheer vitality of the wine. All the books and all the wine courses make great play about how high the acid is in Gavi, that simply is not true. It isn’t low acid that’s for sure but, but it is usually tempered by the ripeness of the fruit and this wine is no exception. I enjoyed it so much that I simply cannot tell you how quickly the bottle emptied itself. It’s lovely on its own or with some shellfish or delicate fish like seabass – 92/100 points.

Available in the UK @ around £14 per bottle from The General Wine Company and It’s Wine Time. More stockist information is available from Grape Passions.

Wine of the Week – Nebbiolo with a twist

Lessona – photo courtesy of Tenute Sella.

In recent months I have become seriously obsessed by the wines of Italy and I think with good reason. There is such variety, such diversity and such pleasure to be had. So much so in fact that I have been giving some tastings called Hidden Corners of Italy that shines a little light on the areas of Italy that people might not encounter all that much.

The wines really seem to have captured people’s imaginations and opened their eyes as to the huge variety that Italy offers. I have shown some stunning sparkling wines, wonderful whites and fine complex reds and will write about them all very soon. However one red in particular showed extremely well recently and I noticed that it is once again available in the UK, so thought that I would make it my Wine of the Week.

It comes from Piemonte, which would normally be regarded as a far from hidden corner of Italy, but it actually comes from the north of the region up towards the Alps from a little known PDO / DOC called Lessona. In fact Lessona is a commune in the Province of Biella some 70 kilometres north of Turin and although it was created a Denominazione di Origine Controllata / DOC as long ago as 1976, there are only 14 hectares of vineyards there.

Wine map of Piemonte – click for a larger view. Non watermarked, high resolution versions are available for a fee.

It wasn’t always like that though. The wine growing areas in the Alto Piemonte were once very important and like Lesona have long and noble histories that predate Barolo by several centuries. Phyloxerra devestated the vineyards and it is much harder to replant here on mountainous terrain than on the low rolling hills of Langhe. It is also much harder to scratch a living in more dramatic terrain, where transport costs are high, so many people left the land over many decades. Some emigtrated to the United States or Argentina, while others just went as far as Turin or Milan to seek work. After the depression and two world wars even those who had stayed were tempted to get steady jobs in the local post war textile industry that boomed for several decades. The consequence of all this is that the wine revolution passed the place by and so they found it hard to pull out of the downward spiral of decline that had gripped the place since the 1930s.

Tenute Sella – photo courtesy of Tenute Sella.

The richer Langhe region had more money to invest in vineyards and wineries, so as the post World War II modern wine revolution bit, those wines were perceived to be finer, richer, rounder and fruitier. More professional viticulture and hygeneic winemaking was completely normal in the south, but took far longer to reach the more impoverished north. As a result, by the time I joined the wine trade 30 odd years ago, the wines of this part of Piemonte were almost never mentioned.

Which is a great shame as the DOCs and DOCGs of this part of Italy produce some seriously impressive wines, especially the reds of Carema, Gattinara, Ghemme, Bramaterra and Lessona. There are many great producers here that deserve to be much more widely known – you can read a bit about them here.

While I was there many producers captured my imagination, but I developed a particular affection for the wines of Tenute Sella. Based in Lessona, although it has vineyards in Bramaterra too, this estate has been owned by the Sella family since 1671 when silk merchant Comino Sella founded it. Today the estate is run by the engaging and charming Marco Rizzetti, who is CEO of the winery and part of the Sella family on his mother’s side.

Tenute Sella vineyards in Lessona – photo courtesy of Tenute Sella.

Today Tenuta Sella farms 7 hectares in Lessona – 50% of the PDO – plus 10 hectares in Bramaterra. The Lessona vineyards are pretty fragmented and on Pliocene marine deposits, so comprise well drained sandy soils.

2011 Lessona

Tenute Sella

DOC Lessona

The principal wine from the estate and the wine they have produced ever since 1671. This is a blend of 85% Nebbiolo (traditionally called Spanna up here) with 15% Vespolina, a close relative of Nebbiolo. The vines are on average 55 years old and the vineyard is at 300 metres above sea level with a south facing slope. The grapes were destemmed and crushed before being fermented in stainless steel vats and the wine was matured for 24 months in large (2500 litre) Slavonian oak barrels, where it also went through the malolactic fermentation. Viticulture is all low impact, near organic with no pesticides.

2011 was a difficult year with periods of heavy rainfall and drought while hail in July severely depleted the crop making yields lower than normal. They are very pleased with what the vintage finally produced, as was I.

The colour was a little bricky like Burgundy, while the nose delivered lovely complex red fruits, spice, pepper, espresso and light smoke with an enticing mix of sweet fruit and savoury characters.

The palate was quite haunting with lovely refreshing acidity, tannins that certainly made themselves known but were not aggressive, making the texture quite supple. The flavours were deep red fruit, plums especially, with dried fruit, earthy, coffee bean, tomato stem, savoury spicy characters and a lovely gamey, leathery development. It really is a lovely wine, more perfumed, more supple than we normally think of Nebbiolo. I could not help feeling that this would be great with Christmas dinner – 93/100 points.

The cellar at Tenute Sella – photo courtesy of Tenute Sella.

A beguiling and complex food wine, if you like Barolo, Northern Rhône wines or Burgundy then you will love this. As well as turkey and goose, this would be wonderful with beef dishes and an array of cheeses.

Available in the UK for between £17 and  £23 per bottle from Vinissimus and Tannico.co.uk.

If you want even more of a bit of a treat for Christmas, then Vintage Wine & Port have a few bottles of the 2000 vintage Tenute Sella Lessona for £39.00 per bottle.

 

Fine White wines, Rosés and Sparklers from an Unexpected Corner of Italy

Beautiful vineyards and landscape of northern Piemonte.

In the last few years I have travelled extensively in Italy and have been fortunate enough to explore a great many wine regions. Italy is a fascinating wine producing country and it’s not only full of world famous wines styles and grape varieties either. Everywhere you go there are constant surprises and new discoveries to be made.

I have travelled to Campania, Sicily, the Marche, Veneto, Friuli, Emilia-Romagna, Umbria, Trentino and the north of Piemonte, as well as the more famous regions of Tuscany and the south of Piemonte. In all of these places I have found wines that have really excited me.

All of these regions are full of wine, sometimes famous and often less well known. Even in the most prestigious regions such as Piemonte and Veneto you can find wines that have almost no presence on the export market and are appreciated almost solely at home.

Italy is most known for her red wines and Italians, like the Spanish, often hold white wine in very low esteem. I expect this view became fixed because Italy, like Spain, is on the whole a hot country in the summer when the grapes are growing. So in the past – before cold fermentation, modern knowhow and clean wineries – the white wines would have been somewhat ropey – especially when compared to the more full-flavoured red wines.

In my formative years Italy’s reputation for white wines – in the UK anyway – was based upon cheap Soave, Frascati, Verdicchio dei Castello di Jesi and Orvieto. However good those wines can be now – and they can be very good indeed – in the 1970s and 1980s they were often less than interesting. Usually based on the high yielding and rather bland Trebbiano, rather than the more interesting grape varieties that had made these wines famous in the first place, they slowly fell out of favour when compared to the competition coming from elsewhere, especially the New World.

It is interesting to note that Frascati was the wine that gave birth to the phrase that a wine ‘didn’t travel well’ and so you should only drink it where it was made. Like most of these white wines it was not regularly bottled until after the Second World War, so until the late 1940s – often much later – it was served by the carafe straight from the barrel or demijohn.

A vineyard in northern Piemonte.

This allowed another Italian white wine to force its way onto export markets and to enjoy success – Gavi. Coming from Piemonte and made from the quite acidic Cortese grape, Gavi – certainly when I first tasted it in the 1980s – seemed more distinguished and refined than those other white wines from Italy at the time. Gavi continues being successful to this day and what helped Gavi create a name for itself is surely the timing. It emerged later than the likes of Frascati, when wineries were already using modern techniques of being ultra clean, using stainless steel fermentation tanks and fermenting at low temperatures. Much of Europe had to play catch up you see as the new world, with less wine making tradition, had often gone the high tech route from the start.

It might be the downward spiral of sales or the example of Gavi, but Italian white wines have fought back and are today in a quite different place from where they were just 20 years ago. Indeed I would say that the white wines of Italy are some of the most exciting you will find from anywhere. This story by the way is repeated in Spain, Portugal and even the less well know corners of France.

Many things have changed how the white wines of Italy taste, but the most important, apart from clean wineries and cold fermentations, are carefully sited vineyards to make sure the grapes do not bake – this retains acidity. Lower yields ensure more concentration and so more flavour, while later picking also gives more flavour – as long as the vines are in a good place to retain freshness and balance.

So I have tasted my way through astonishingly good Vermentino from Sardinia, Verdicchio dei Castello di Jesi from the Marche, Lugana from Veneto and Lombardy, Soave from Veneto, Tai from the Colli Berici in Veneto, Fiano, Greco, Falanghina, Coda di Volpe and Caprettone from Campania, Carricante from Etna in Sicily as well as world class sparkling wines made by the Traditional Method from Trentino (Trento DOC), Lombardy (Franciacorta), Campania (Falanghina), Marche (Verdicchio dei Castello di Jesi ), Lugana and Piemonte (Gavi and some Nebbiolo sparkling too).

Which brings me on to my theme for today, the white, rosé and sparkling wines of northern Piemonte.

Piemonte’s fame almost all rests on the wines produced south of Turin, which is a great shame as there are wonderful wines made to the north in more Alpine conditions. Most of these wine making areas are actually older than the likes of Barolo and Barbaresco in the south and were much more famous in the past. For many reasons – I wrote about them here – the modern wine revolution passed these places by and so they have had a much harder job getting their wines onto the world stage.

Wine map of Piemonte – click for a larger view. Non watermarked, high resolution versions are available for a fee.

I loved a wide array of the red wines from these fascinating outposts in northern Piemonte and wrote about them here, but the area produces some pretty exciting whites and sparkling wines too, most of them made from a grape variety that was totally new to me – Erbaluce (pronounced Urr-ba-luch-eh). Rather fascinatingly Nebbiolo also gets a look in for the rosé wines, both still and sparkling.

This intriguing grape is indigenous to Piemonte and doesn’t seem to grow anywhere else. The most ‘famous’ wine made from it is Caluso DOCG – often known as Erbaluce di Caluso – and they must be 100% Erbaluce, as must the whites of the nearby Canavese DOC, Coste della Sesia DOC and Colline Novaresi DOC. It is known as a high acid grape and certainly the best examples for me were the ones that retained refreshing acidity.

The wines

 

Tenuta Sella.

2014 Doranda

Tenute Sella

DOC Coste della Sesia

 

I was very taken by the wines at Tenuta Sella. It is a beautiful estate in Lessona, although they have vineyards in Bramaterra too – and has a long history going back to 1671 and have always been owned by the same family. Until the unification of Italy Piemonte and Sardinia constituted a single country called the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Sella family, which had married into the Mosca family, also owned Sella & Mosca one of the most prestigious wine estates in Sardinia.

 

This is 100% Erbaluce, grown in estate vineyards in Lessona and Bramaterra, both of which are DOCs for red wines only, which is why this is labelled as Coste della Sesia. Some vintages from a wider source of vineyards are labelled as DOC Piemonte.

I enjoyed this wine, it was aromatic, fresh and floral with a rich, pithy note too. The palate was quite rich and creamy because of skin contact and and lees ageing. It was nicely balanced with juicy grapefruit and more succulent peach flavours. A good introduction to Erbaluce but with less overt acidity than many – 89/100 points.

 

Vineyards at Tenute Sella.

2015 Majoli Rosato

Tenute Sella

DOC Coste della Sesia

 

This rosé is pure Nebbiolo and from 45 year old vines, old vines helps give depth and concentration to the wine. The vineyards are in the two ‘Cru’ appellations, Lessona (95%) and Bramaterra (5%), which is why the wine is labelled Coste della Sesia, as that is the wider area. The Bramaterra component is made by bleeding some juice off their red wine while it is fermenting. The Lessona component gets 36 hours cold soak pre fermentation to help extract flavours and complexity and is then direct pressed. The wine has malolactic fermentation and has a 6 month ageing on the lees in tank.

This has real Nebbiolo character on the nose, with earthy and rose petal notes, blood orange, cranberry and spice too. The palate is quite full, with some weight and intensity and texture – those lees? It is also very tasty with lots of rich red fruit, that twist of bitter orange, some spice and a good fresh acidity and minerality making it lively. This is a fine rosé and it would go with all manner of dishes from salads and fish to veal and pasta dishes – 92/100 points.

 

2015 (no vintage on the label as it is not a DOC or DOCG wine) Clementina Brut Rosato

Tenute Sella

Vino Spumante

 

This is 100% Nebbiolo from their estate vineyards in Bramaterra and it was my first sparkling Nebbiolo ever. It is made sparkling by the Charmat, or tank method  – known locally as the Martinotti Lungo method – in order to emphasis freshness and downplay Nebbiolo’s hard tannins.

 

The first thing that hits you about this wine is the beautiful colour. It is vibrant and a little orange as befitting a wine called Clementina! The nose is bright, scented, floral and fruity while the palate is fresh, lively, fruity – strawberry and cherry – and a little creamy too. A delicious and very unusual take on Nebbiolo – 90/100 points.

 

The view north from Nervi’s vineyards.

2015 Nervi Bianca

Vitivinicola Nervi

DOCG Erbaluce di Caluso

 

I loved visiting Nervi. They are one of the 2 main producers in Gattinara, a DOCG that should be much, much more famous than it is. Their wines were really impressive, they were very gracious hosts and their cellars were a joy to see.

 

This is 100% Erbaluce with modern handling, cold fermentation in stainless steel with no malolactic fermentation and a little lees ageing. 

This was bright, fresh, zesty and pure with a little touch of minerality, or salinity. A fresh, lively, modern dry white wine that is very appealing – 88/100 points.

 

The view south across Nervi’s vineyards.

2014 (no vintage on the label as it is not a DOC or DOCG wine) Jefferson 1787 Nebiule Rosato Brut Spumante

Vitivinicola Nervi

Vino Spumante di Qualità

 

A Traditional Method sparkling Nebbiolo this time. It is a pale rosé with 4 hours skin contact to give the colour, zero dosage (so very dry) and 9 months ageing on the lees. This was the last bottle left of the first vintage and the wine was proclaimed by Gambero Rosso to be the best sparkling wine in Italy! The DOCG Gattinara does nor permit sparkling wines, so it is simply labelled as Vino Spumante di Qualità.

 

The wine is named in honour of Thomas Jefferson who travelled extensively in Europe while serving as Minister (Ambassador) to France. He was a great wine lover who spent a lot of time and effort trying to grow vitas vinegar grapes at his Monticello estate in Virginia. He wrote glowingly of Nebbiolo, or Nebiule as it was then known, saying ‘there is a red wine of Nebiule which is very singular. It is about as sweet as the silky Madeira, as astringent on the palate a Bordeaux and as brisk (sparkling) as Champagne’. Which just goes to show that Nebbiolo has changed beyond all recognition in a little over 200 years!

 

This is a lovely orangey, wild salmon colour with a touch of rose petal. The aromas are also rose petal with cherry and raspberry notes. The palate has a softness of ripe strawberry, cherry and raspberry together with thrilling, lively acidity and a fine mousse. There is also something very taut and lean about it, like Champagne, with a touch of minerality, something savoury and balsamic and a long, crisp finish. This is a very fine sparkling wine – 94/100 points.

 

Alberto Arlunno in his vineyards.

NV Mia Ida Brut Rosato

Antichi Vigneti di Cantalupo

Vino Spumante

 

I loved visiting this family owned estate in Ghemme. Alberto Arlunno, who took over the running of the estate from his father in 1993, was a charming host and their wines were very good indeed – especially their Ghemme made from Nebbiolo, which was an area that I had only ever heard of before, not tasted.

 

This is a sparkling Nebbiolo, again made by the Charmat method and named after Alberto’s mother Ida.

Again the colour was spectacular, it looked like an Aperol Spritz! The aromas were fruity and lively with a little cherry and raspberry, while the palate had loads of flavour. Soft red fruit, raspberry and strawberry, mingled with blood orange and cherry, so giving a delicious richness and lovely bright, balancing acidity. A really nice, drinkable sparkling rosé – 89/100 points.

 

Masere and pergolas.

2015 Anima Erbaluce di Caluso

Azienda Agricola La Masera

DOCG Erbaluce di Caluso

 

I was impressed by La Masera which is a new winery founded by a group of friends in 2005. Today they farm 5 hectares within the Erbaluce di Caluso DOCG zone. They grow Barbera, Freisa, Vespolina, Neretto and Nebbiolo, but focus on Erbaluce in dry, sparkling and sweet, passito, styles. Their name comes from the Masere which are the thick stone walls between each vineyard.

 

This is 100% Erbaluce, grown in the rocky morainic hills of Canavese at 250 metres above sea level, hand harvested, cold fermented at 16˚C and aged 6 months on the lees in stainless steel tanks.

This was the first Erbaluce that made me really sit up and take notice. It is very modern and very bright. It has a very fresh nose that is slightly leesy with rich citrus, green apple and light floral notes.

 

The palate is bright, lively and fresh with brisk, lively acidity and lightly herbal, savoury and nutty. There is purity here, with a little saline on the finish.

Straightforward, but well made and very drinkable with thrilling acidity. A very nicely made and versatile dry white wine that would have broad appeal, especially with Sauvignon drinkers – 89/100 points.

2014 Macaria Erbaluce di Caluso

Azienda Agricola La Masera

DOCG Erbaluce di Caluso

 

Anima’s big brother, this is 100% Erbaluce macerated on the skins and part fermented in stainless steel and then half way through the ferment 70% of the wine is transferred to oak barrels. Lees stirring takes place on both components – the 70% in oak barrels and the 30% in stainless steel tanks – and it is aged for 7 months on the lees before blending.

The nose is attractive with nice herbal, oily creamy notes and a touch of olive oil and vanilla.

On the palate it has a good texture, that fresh lively acidity, savoury, herbal flavours, orange-like flavour and feel – like barrel aged Viura can have – together with a creamy quality. It has a long finish with apricot succulence making it an attractive and well balanced wine – 90/100 points.

The winery, vineyards and views at Antichi Vigneti di Cantalupo.

2011 Masilé Brut

Azienda Agricola La Masera

DOCG Erbaluce di Caluso Spumante

 

I liked their white wines, but my favourite wine from La Masera was this sparkling Erbaluce. Interestingly the grapes were grown on a traditional pergola system, which is finding favour once again after having been seen as old fashioned for many decades. Long seen as hard to ripen, pergolas might just be perfect with the sunnier conditions as a consequence of global warming. They also allow for good movement of air to keep the fruit cool and healthy.

 

This is 100% Erbaluce cold fermented and then aged on the lees in a mixture of barrels and tanks for 6 months, with lees stirring. It is then bottled and undergoes the Traditional Method to become sparkling. Once fizzy it is aged for a further 36 months on the lees before disgorging giving it 48 months on lees in total.

 

Complex stuff with a great nose of apricots, brioche, rich pear and sweet spice. The pear carries through to the palate, dollops of honey and ginger and cooked fruit and brioche, flakey pastry . The lovely rich style is tempered by the fresh acidity and the delicate, persistent mouse. A triumph – 91/100 points.

 

2015 La Rustia

Cantina Orsolani

DOCG Erbaluce di Caluso

 

Another small producer, this estate has a much longer history having been founded n 1894. However at first it was a restaurant with wine being made just for the customers to drink with their food. Over time it was the wine that became famous and nowadays the Orsolani family focus almost solely on Erbaluce with a few black grapes too. They actually produce a Carema, which I assume is from bought in fruit as carom famously only has 2 producers, Ferrando and the Carema cooperative.

 

100%  Erbaluce grown on a pergola on south facing slopes at 350 metres above sea level, hand harvested and cold fermented and aged on the lees for 6 months.

This is aromatic and more steely and quite herbal and nettle-like in style. The palate has some softness and roundness that is attractive, while the acidity keeps it clean and fresh. Despite all the zing though it feels textured from lees ageing for 6 months. Again very drinkable and good, but a little richer in style – 90/100 points.

Vineyards in Ghemme.

2011 Cuvée Tradizione

Cantina Orsolani

DOCG Erbaluce di Caluso Spumante Gran Riserva

 

Another ambitious and delicious Erbaluce sparkler made by the Traditional Method. Partly barrel fermented and partly tank fermented the wine is aged for 48 months on the lees before disgorging. There is no dosage, or added sugar, but there is 3 grams per litre of residual sugar.

 

A bright nose of seashore, bread, flakey pastry together with dried lemon and light apple notes.

The palate delivers a lovely balance between richness – honey, nuts, dried fruit – and lemon / apple freshness and there is some nice minerality too – 91/100 points.

 

2009 Cuvée Tradizione 1968

Cantina Orsolani

DOCG Erbaluce di Caluso Spumante Gran Riserva

Gianluigi Orsolani is the winemaker at the family estate today, but it was his father Francesco who made the region’s first traditional method sparkling wine back in 1968. This wine is named for that first vintage and is aged on the lees for 60 months to give even more depth and complexity60 months on the lees. Again there is no dosage, just the sweetness of the ripe Erbaluce grapes.

A very intense and ripe wine with a lovely, lifted nose of pineapple cubes, toasted brioche, flakey pastry, nuts and caramel. The palate follows on with rich flavours of cooked orchard fruit – apple and peach – with more brioche, biscuit and nuts.  Full-flavoured and rich with a long finish – 92/100 points.

 

2012 Pietro Cassina Spumante Metodo Classico

Vitivinicola Pietro Cassina

Vino Spumante di Qualità

Pietro Cassina is a charming fellow who farms 6 hectares and makes lovely wines in a fabulous new winery in Lessona, another place that I had only heard of before this trip. As well as Nebbiolo, he grows some Erbaluce and makes this lovely traditional method sparkling wine from it. He ages it on the lees for 36 months. His reds are DOC Lessona or DOC Costa  della Sesia, neither of which permit sparkling wines, so his fizz is simply labelled as Vino Spumante di Qualità.

A lively gold colour with a rich, smoky, leesy, pastry, brioche nose. The palate is rich, biscuity and creamy with nutty and caramel flavours and a good cut of acidity. This is classy stuff indeed – 92/100 points.

 

2012 T

Azienda Agricola Cieck

DOCG Erbaluce di Caluso

 

Cieck are another impressive producer that is relatively new. It was originally founded, in 1985, to produce sparkling wines, but they have branched out and today they farm 16 hectares of vines, mainly Erbaluce, but grow Nebbiolo and Barbara too.

 

This special cuvée is a selection of fruit from Cieck’s Misobolo Vineyard. Harvested late, in November, with skin contact for 36, then cold fermented and finally aged in untoasted Slavonian (Croatian) oak tonneau of 1500 litres for 8-10 months.

This remarkable wine has and rich, intense nose of ripe greengage together with something tropical, herbaceous and it’s slightly mealy and nutty too as well as having a waft of jasmine about it.

 

The palate has great concentration, super acidity that cuts through the fatty texture giving tension and a mineral feel. A delicious and great wine with a very long finish – 93/100 points.

Walking through vineyards in Gattinara.

2011 San Giorgio Brut

Azienda Agricola Cieck

DOCG Erbaluce di Caluso

 

This was the original product of the estate and it is pretty good. The base wine is cold fermented and after the second fermentation in bottle – Traditional Method – the wine is aged for 36 months on the lees. 

 

Given the long lees ageing the nose is remarkably fresh and lively, with floral, jasmine and camomile too as well as biscuit, pastry and fresh naan bread.

 

The palate has lots of soft fruit and a cut of zesty acidity making it very balanced and refreshing too. A lovely aperitif wine – 88/100 points.

 

2010 Calliope Brut

Azienda Agricola Cieck

DOCG Erbaluce di Caluso

 

Cieck’s most complex sparkler with some 35% of the base wine fermented in new oak barrels and aged on the lees for 9 months. This component is then blended with cold, stainless steel tank fermented wine and the second fermentation takes place after bottling – Traditional Method. After the second fermentation in bottle the  wine is aged for 36 months on the lees. 

 

This offers a really lovely nose of ripe citrus, lime, lemon together with richer leesy, pastry, biscuit and nutty notes.

 

The palate delivers rich cooked lemon, cooked apricot and apple together with more savoury spicy, wholemeal bread and pastry flavours. It has refreshing, brisk acidity and something that I have wondered about for a long time. A good friend of mine and perhaps the greatest taster that I have ever known once described a sparkling wine to me as having a ‘brittle mousse’. I have always struggled to understand the phrase, but liked it at the same time. I now understand what it means as this too has a brittle mousse. It feels like it will shatter in your mouth, which just makes the wine even more intriguing! Great stuff – 92/100 points.

Lake Viverone from Cellagrande.

 

2004 San Michele Brut Brut

Cellagrande

DOC Erbaluce di Caluso – became DOCG in 2010

 

Set on the northern shore of Lake Viverone about as far north as you can get in the Caluso zone, Cellagrande farm a small estate and winemaker Fabrizio Ruzzon crafts their wines in the remains of a beautiful twelfth century convent. Only the church, bell tower and cellars remain and they are put to good use as the perfect place to age their sparkling wines.

 

This is 100% Erbaluce grown on south facing slopes dropping down to the north shore of Lake Viverone. Cold fermented then bottled and after the second fermentation the wine is aged on the lees for a minimum of 36 months, often much longer. This 2004 had only just been disgorged.

 

This was a deep golden colour with a wonderfully enticing nose of rich apples, apricots, pastry and spices. The palate was rich and creamy with cooked apples, a touch of pineapple, dry honey, caramel, biscuits and pastry all kept balanced by some lovely, bright, cleansing acidity. This is serious stuff and a real triumph – 93/100 points.

 

Vineyards in Ghemme.

Sweet Wines

Given how important sweet wines were in the past – they were the most sought after wines in ancient times and the middle ages because they kept whereas other wines did not – this may well be the oldest wine style from Piemonte. Sweet wines made from dried grapes, to get rid of water and so increase the proportion of sugar have been made all over the Mediterranean world since the beginning of civilisation.

 

2007 Alladium Passito

Azienda Agricola Cieck

DOC Erbaluce di Caluso Passito

 

For this wine they select the best bunches of ripest Erbaluce fruit on the estate and then dry them in ventilated rooms on special racks. The dry conditions stop the grapes from going mouldy. After crushing the juice is fermented and the finished wine is aged for 3 years in oak barrels.

A light dessert wine with honey, orange, fig, orange peel and a touch of oak spice and tea on the nose. The palate is full and rounded with a soft viscous texture, caramelised orange, cooked apricot, a little treacle and cinder toffee. A very attractive wine, fresh and delightfully drinkable rather than complex – 88/100 points.

 

2009 Sulé Passito

Cantina Orsolani

DOC Erbaluce di Caluso Passito

 

This passito – a sweet wine made from dried grapes –  wine is fermented in oak barrels and then aged in those barrels on the lees for 3 more years.

 

A richer style with a caramel colour and aromas of creme brûlée, burnt sugar, caramelised orange, coffee and sweet spice. The palate is intense and figgy, almost like a an Australian Liqueur Muscat with buttery toffee, molasses, coffee, dried orange, caramel and cinnamon. It is viscous, silky and mouth-filling and has a long finish – 90/100 points.

 

I was very impressed with these white wines and sparklers from northern Piemonte. I went expecting to taste red wines made from Nebbiolo and although there were plenty of those that were very good indeed, I also enjoyed these whites and sparkling wines. Which just goes to show what an excellent wine region it is.

 

So you see, Italy can always surprise you, even astonish you, with wonderful whites and sparkling wines from places where you least expect them. This can be from regions that you have never heard of and grape varieties that you have never even heard mentioned before. Personally I think that is a good thing as it means the world of wine is even more exciting than we thought and it gives us even more good reasons to keep an open mind and and to try everything.

 

Try them if you get the chance and let us know what you thought of them.

Alto Piemonte – Italy’s Hidden Treasure from Alpine Piemonte

The dramatic vineyards of Gattinara.

When a wine lover thinks of Piemonte, or Piedmont, then the chances are that their very next thought is of Barolo. This small area of wine production south of Turin is capable of producing sublime red wines from the local Nebbiolo grape. They come at a price though. Barolo can be very expensive indeed and even the everyday examples are approaching £20 a bottle nowadays. That being said, those basic examples of Barolo are now generally much better than they used to be some ten or fifteen years ago.

Nearby the wines of Barbaresco, also made from Nebbiolo, can also be wonderful, and often much more charming than Barolo, but are often also very highly priced – and prized.

Wine map of Piemonte – click for a larger view. Non watermarked, high resolution versions are available for a fee.

A glance at my map will show you the geography of Piemonte. Turin sits in an ampitheatre surrounded by the Alps that mark the frontiers to the south, west and north and so the flatter south eastern part of Piemonte is historically the most productive. Together the Langhe, where you will find Barolo and Barbaresco among other wines, and Monferrato, where many wines including Asti are produced, account for over 90% of Piemonte’s wine production.

It wasn’t always like that though. The wine growing areas on Piemonte’s northern fringes, Alto Piemonte, were once very imporatnt. Many have long and noble histories that predate Barolo by several centuries, and could possibly be famous again.

I have recently returned from a fascinating trip to Piemonte, one that focussed solely on these more northerly and less well known wine areas. Not for us the well worn path to Barolo and Barbaresco and the rolling Langhe Hills. No, our little group of wine writers was whisked north of Turin to the very foot of the Alps. Here, over the course of several days, we visited vineyards and sampled the wines from twelve wine producing areas, only two of which were known to me beforehand. I even tasted a grape variety that I had never, ever heard of before – which is always an exciting experience.

Many different grape varieties are grown in Piemonte, but for the really famous reds, it is Nebbiolo that is considered to be the true aristocrat. Indeed together with Sangiovese it is traditionally regarded as one of the noble black grapes of Italy. The grape gets its name from the thick fogs – called Nebbia – that descend from the mountains in the late Autumn, just before harvest, and so causing ripening problems for this famously late ripening grape variety.

The beautiful views from Gattinara.

Spanna – Nebbiolo in the North
Further north Nebbiolo is also widely grown, but in the past they often called the grape Spanna up there. Although it is Nebbiolo, it is a different clone of the grape and so gives subtly different results, a bit like Tempranillo and Tinto Fino. I remember seeing Spanna on wine labels in my very early days, but as far as I can see true Nebbiolo has either taken over in the areas where Spanna once ruled supreme, or is just treated as though it and Nebbiolo are completely the same. Certainly – again much as with Tinto Fino and Tempranillo – some growers told me that Spanna and Nebbiolo are identical, just different names for the same thing, while others were certain they were different. Whatever the case, I am sure that Nebbiolo is easier to sell than Spanna, just as Malbec is easier to sell than Cot and Tempranillo than Tino Fino.

Centuries ago this area was much more important than it is now, with the wines enjoying more fame than those of southern Piemonte, but all sorts of things changed that. Phyloxerra devestated the vineyards and it is much harder to replant high up than on the low rolling hills of Langhe. It is also much harder to scratch a living in more dramatic terrain, where transport costs are high, so many people left the land. Some emigtrated to the United States or Argentina, while others just went as far as Turin or Milan to seek work. After the depression and two world wars even those who had stayed were tempted to get steady jobs in the local post war textile industry that boomed for several decades . The consequence of all this is that the wine revolution passed the place by and so they couldn’t pull out of the downward spiral of decline that had gripped the place since the 1930s.

The richer Langhe region had more money to invest in vineyards and wineries, so as the post World War II modern wine revolution bit, those wines were perceived to be finer, richer, rounder and fruitier. More professional viticulture and hygeneic winemaking was completely normal in the south, but took far longer to reach the more impoverished north.

This was all new territory to me and it was tremendously exciting. We visited three districts, with Piemonte being the region. These districts had PDOs and also contained village level appellations – Crus in the same sense that Fleurie is a Cru of Beaujolais and Pouilly-Fuissé a Cru of Mâcon. The Italians producers themselves seem to only use the word Cru in the specific vineyard sense, as in the Grand Crus of Alsace.

Your author making notes amongst the vines at Tenute Sella.

Coste delle Sesia
Our first visits were to the Coste delle Sesia. This DOC – or PDO – covers vineyards near the River Sesia in the Provinces of Vercelli and Biella. One white can be made from Erbaluce, a new grape for me, but from what I saw it was the reds that rule supreme here and these must contain at least 50% of Nebbiolo, Bonarda (Uva Rara), Vespolina, Croatina or Barbera.

I tasted a few excellent wines from this appellation, but the real excitement came from the examples that had a grape variety on the label too. I was very impressed by some of the Coste della Sesia Nebbiolo as well as the few examples of the deliciously spicy Coste della Sesia Vespolina that we got to try. As far as I can see, Vespolina is a very appealing grape that only grows arpound here and a little over the border in Lombardy.

Recommended producers: Tenute Sella, especially their Orbello red and Majoli rosé.
Pietro Cassina, especially his delicious Coste della Sesia Vespolina.
Travaglini, who really produce Gattinara, but who use their younger vines in an excellent Nebbiolo Coste della Sesia

The Communes of the Coste delle Sesia
Wholly contained within the Costa delle Sesia are three commune – or village – appellations, Cru if you like. Many of these had a very hard twentieth century and are desperately trying to come back from that near death experience. A mixture of Phyloxerra, follwed by mass migration to America and Argentina, wars, depressions and then the rise of the local textile industry – it was relief for the locals to earn a steady wage working in the textle factories after so much instability, so they lefy the land in droves – all took a toll and nearly killed off wine producing in these parts.

Climate wise the area benefits from being south facing, so good sun exposure and having a long growing season, just what Nebbiolo needs. There are also big night time temperature drops which helps retain acidity and finesse in the grapes, as does the cool air that descends from the Alps, tempering the summer heat.

The beautiful vineyards at Tenute Sella.

Lessona DOC is a tiny PDO which only makes red wines and as far as I can see deserves to be better known. Fundamentally they are made from Nebbiolo – 85% minimum, but a little Vespolina and the wonderfully named Uva Rara is permitted. The wines must be aged before release for a minimum of 22 months, 12 in wood, usually big old 3000 litre wooden foudres or botti rather than barriques. Riserva wines are aged for at least  46 months, 30 of which are in wood.

Once upon a time the area had hundreds of hectares under vine. Now most of those have returned to forest and by the mid 1990s there were only 6.5 hectares of grapes left, but a modest rennaisence is underway and there are now somewhere around 23 hectares with a few new producers just getting started as well, which bodes well for the future.

Recommended producers: Tenute Sella, this producer’s top wines are all from this PDO. With a history going back to 1671, Sella has long been the commune’s beating heart and the wines are very impressive.
Pietro Cassina is a new producer, but his previous profession as an architect seems to have given him an eye for detail that ensures his wines are very good indeed.
La Badina, especially their Lessona Riserva 2010.
Massimo Clerico, my new favourite drinking buddy makes very good wines that age pretty well – his 2005 is perfectly mature.
Proprietà Sperino, an exciting producer created by Paolo De Marchi whose father founded the Isole & Olena estate in Chianti Classico.

Bramatera DOC is another miniscule PDO that makes good Nebbiolo – or Spanna – wines. Again they are oftem blends with a maximum of 30% Croatina, 20% Uva Rara and / or Vespolina.

The wines must be aged for a minimum of 22 months, 18 in wood, again normally foudres or botti rather than barriques. Riservas are aged for at least 34 months, 24 of which are in wood.

Recommended producers: Tenute Sella, I know it’s repetitive, but they make very good wines and have vineyards in three different PDO areas.

Looking down on gattinara from the vineyards.

Gattinara DOCG is perhaps the most famous of all the PDOs in the northern part of Piemonte. Once upon a time it was more highly praised than Barolo. Indeed it was famous before Barolo had even decided to make the wines as we know them today. I saw old photographs which showed the hills to the north of Gattinara town to be completely covered in vineyards. This was only in 1906 – just four years before my aunt was born – but today just 60 hectares remain.

Huge barrels at Nervi.

Old vintages in the cellar at Nervi – my birth year is far right and no, despite many hints they didn’t open one.

In Gattinara it’s normal, and traditional, to soften the potentially hard edged Nebbiolo – or Spanna – with up to 10% Uva Rara and 4% Vespolina. The wines have to be aged for at least 35 months, 24 of which are in wood. Riserva wines receive at least 47 months, of which 35 are in wood and sometimes a proprtion are aged in barrique – 225 litre barrels. Like a good few of the PDOs around here, Gattinara has some volcanic soils in the mix which can often boost acidity and produce elegant wines.

Our little group hard at work.

From what I experienced, the quality here is very high. I was hugely impressed by the wines that I tasted, they had real class, elegance, finesse, whatever you want to call it, but they were very good wines indeed.

Looking towards Gattinara from Nervi’s vineyards.

Recommended producers: Nervi, the oldest producer in the area is now under new ownership and appears to be in fine fettle. I loved their wines, which seemed to have the merest touch of modernity to them. The whole range was first rate including their standard Gattinara, but the Valferana and Molsino Cru wines from specific vineyard sites were maginificent – only a tiny proportion of the very best parcels of the Crus are bottled seperately, the rest is blended in to their Gattinara. I also greatly enjoyed their traditional method pink sparkling Nebbiolo called Jefferson 1787 and really regret not buying a bottle now.

It was particularly fascinating to taste the 2013 Molsino Cru from 4 different wooden vats, Austrian oak, Slavonian (Croatian) oak, Swiss oak and Vosges oak from Alsace. The same wine went into the 3000 litre wooden vats, but 4 entirely different wines came out, which got me seriously wondering about terroir! For me the Slavonian oak was the clear winner, as it really tamed Nebbiolo’s firm tannins.

Finally a decent sized bottle – being held by Cinzia Travaglini, the founder’s great grand-daughter.

Big wooden barrels at Travaglini.

Travaglini is not quite as old as Nervi, it was founded in the 1920s, but is still run by the original family and appears to be more traditional and, I thought, sees itself as the keeper of the flame of Gattinara. Whether that is true or not, I loved their wines which are all produced from their own fruit grown on the slopes of Gattinara. Real passion came through into the glass and the whole range shone. The standard Gattinaras are very fine, while the Riserva really thrilled me. Travaglini chose not to bottle the Crus seperately, but to blend them all together as they believe that gives the best expression of the region.

I also fell for their white sparkling Nebbiolo. Named Nebolé Brut, they have only made one vintage so far, but it was voted best sparkling in Italy last year by a Sommelier’s association – not a bad start. The wine was pure and mineral and fine and sadly we drank the last bottle. I would also recommend the salami they make that is flavoured with their Gattinara, it is delicious.

Colline Novaresi
East of the Sesia River is the Colline Novaresi – Hills of Novara – which does a similar job to the Coste delle Sesia in the west. Again the white wines must be 100% Erbaluce with the reds made from a minimum of 50% Nebbiolo, Barbera, Vespolina, Croatina or Bonarda.

Recommended producers: Antichi Vigneti di Cantalupo, especially their Villa Horta Vespolina and Abate di Cluny.

There are four commune PDOs here; Boca DOC, Sizzano DOC, Fara DOC and Ghemme DOCG. Sadly I only have experience of Ghemme, but the others are so tiny in terms of production that it would be very unusual to find them in the outside world, indeed, I didn’t even get to try them there!

Our little group in Ghemme.

Ghemme DOCG is yet another miniscule PDO of just 60-65 hectares. The wines must be at least 85% Nebbiolo – or Spanna – with up to 15% Uva Rara and / or Vespolina. The standard wine must be aged for at least 34 months, 18 in wood, while the Riservas must be aged for at least 46 months, with 24 in wood.

At around 400 metres above sea level, the vineyards are the highest on this side of the Sesia River, while the soils are very mixed, but are not volcanic, so the wines can feel a little fatter than in Gattinara.

Recommended producers: Antichi Vigneti di Cantalupo, especially their Ghemme and Collis Breclemæ Cru Ghemme.
Torraccia del Piantavigna, make a wide range of wines, but it their standard Ghemme that shone out for me, although their Gattinara was pretty good too.

The beautiful little town of Carema, nestling amongst vine covered mountainsides.

Carema DOC
Our last Nebbiolo visit was to Carema, a place I had heard of and I had even tried the wines, but never visited before. It is an astonishing place, right on the border with the Valle d’Aosta, that tiny Italian region sandwiched between France and Switzerland. We are truly Alpine here, indeeed the landscape reminded me of Switzerland’s vineyards to some degree.

Most of the vineyards in Carema are trained on Pergolas. This keeps the vine away from the damp, humid soil and ensures maximum sun exposure in this difficult landscape. It also allows for the precious land to be used for cultivating other crops or livestock.

Tending the land under the Pergola in Carema.

It only makes red wines in the DOC and they are made from pure Nebbiolo. Standard wines have to be aged for a minimum of 24 months before release, 12 of which are in very large oak or chestnut barrels, while Riservas have to be aged for at least 36 months, again 12 in wood. These times have been seriously reduced recently, which I suspect has done the wines no end of good. I found the oak to be well integrated and the tannins very well controlled.

The place is extraordinary however you slice it. The vines grow at between 300 and 600 metres above sea level, making them amongst the highest in Europe. There are only 16 hectares grown – roughly 32 acres – and bear in mind that in my mid 1990s copy of The Oxford Companion to Wine, Jancis Robinson MW states that there were then 60 hectares, then a lot have been lost very recently.

Beautiful Carema vineyards.

What’s more, 14 of those 16 hectares are controlled by the excellent local cooperative, Cantina dei Produttori Nebbiolo di Carema, which has 78 members, so each holding is miniscule as well as being almost perpendicular. The only other producer – yes only two companies make this wine – is Ferrando Vini.

In the past there were many more vineyards, but such back breaking work doesn’t appeal to younger generations, and hasn’t for decades, so people have left the area for an easier lifestyle. However I am willing to bet that the wines have never been better. I tasted the co-op’s Carema Classico, black label and their Riserva, white label, and I was seriously impressed. The wines were lighter perhaps than the other Nebbiolo wines that I tasted on the trip, but they were at least as complex as the Gattinaras and had great concentration of fruit as well as silky tannins. Like the wonderful wines of from Etna DOC in Sicily, I believe these are worthy of DOCG status.

Alpine Piemonte
All in all it was an excellent trip and really fascinating to discover a part of this hidden corner of Italy. The quality of the wines was very high and the passion and commitment of the producers was very clear. They struggle though, as they don’t have the simple clear message of success that their colleagues in the Langhe enjoy. In many ways, with the possible exception of Gattinara – which has a little fame, they have no clear message to make their wines accessable to the outside world. We had a round table conference about this and I tried to help. I came up with the phrase Alpine Piemonte, which I think does give a clear message, certainly more than Alto Piemonte. As long as you know what Piemonte is and know what Alpine is, then surely it’s clear? I would be willing to let them use the slogan for some fair renumeration, a holiday home in Carema perhaps?

Anyway, I urge you to try the wines, I think you will be surprised and excited by their quality and often by the value they represent as well. We visited a few other wine districts too and tasted some really interesting white and sparkling wines that I will write about another day.

Stockist information for the UK:
Cantina dei Produttori Nebbiolo di Carema and Ferrando Vini are imported into the UK by Austrum Wines.
Travaglini are imported into the UK by Austrum Wines.
Nervi are imported into the UK by
For Proprietà Sperino stockists click here.

Stockist information for the US:
For Tenute Sella stockists click here.
For Cantina dei Produttori Nebbiolo di Carema stockists click here.
For Travaglini stockists click here.
For Nervi stockists click here.
For Proprietà Sperino stockists click here.

Wine of the Week 61 – an affordable classic

I am not often one to encourage people buy the cheaper examples of classic wines. As a rule I believe that you need to pay a proper price for the true classics. This is because budget wines are often a pale imitation of what they out to be. Sub £12 Sancerre or Chablis are normally pretty dilute things, all tart acidity and no real character. Cheaper Châteauneuf-du-Pape in no way prepares you for the joys of the real thing. Entry level (under £10) Gewürztraminer lacks true concentration and depth and so on. This is understandable, these wines are really fairly expensive to grow and make and so if there is a cheaper version then it is usually made to a price.

Of course there are exceptions and I am delighted to have found one just the other day. Rather excitingly it is a Barbaresco from Piemonte in north west Italy. These wines, made from the Nebbiolo grape like its near Neighbour Barolo, are often among Italy’s most expensive and sought after, so to find a great value example that is actually rather good is quite something.

The wine is made by the wonderful Araldica cooperative who make a wide range of well made Piemontese wines – I love their La Battistina Gavi for example – and never seem to put a foot wrong. Certainly this Barbaresco is a delicious example that gives a very real idea of what these wines are about, at a good price so I made it my Wine of the Week.

The beautiful Piemontese landscape.

Map showing the wines of Piemonte, click on map for a larger view.

2011 Corsini Barbaresco
Barbaresco DOCg
Araldica Vini Piemontesi
Piemonte
Italy

This is 100% Nebbiolo, made from quite old vines – which give greater depth and concentration – grown at between 180 and 400 metres above sea level. The grapes were hand harvested and fermented in stainless steel vats. It was then aged for 18 months in large oak vats.

The colour is typical Nebbiolo in that it is translucent and red with an orange / bricky rim. The nose is lifted and vibrant with smoky spicy notes mingling with rich cherry and plum together with some rose floral notes and light touches of leather and savoury mushroom and truffle.

The palate is smooth and seductive with lots of tannin, but it ripe and smooth rather than astringent. There is plenty of deep red fruit together with spice and rich truffles, smoke, flowers and a dusting of mocha from the oak ageing. The finish is long and satisfying with those tannins giving some nice firm structure, while the high acid – typical of the grape and Italian red wines in general – make it perfect with Italian style food.

A lovely, drinkable introduction to Nebbiolo, this is well made and refined, with a fresh, clean and vibrant feel – 88/100 points.

Available in the UK from Waitrose, Waitrose Cellar and Ocado for £11.99 per bottle. Other stockists can be seen here.

Like most wines made from Nebbiolo grapes, this is a deeply savoury wine that really needs to be enjoyed with food. It would be excellent with steak, roast or braised beef, rich risottos and mushroom and truffle dishes. Give it a try if you can, and let us know what you think.

Happy New Year & 3 Wines of the Week…

Well, here we are at the start of 2015 and still not a jet pack, hover mobile, silver jump suit or meal consisting solely of pills in sight. How wrong all the soothsayers were!

I hope your Christmas and New Years were relaxing, fun and memorable and that you enjoyed plenty of good food and wine. I’m sure you noticed that I took a bit of a break from writing these pages, I hope that you didn’t mind or begrudge me the time off.

Like you I drank a fair amount, mainly good sparkling wines and half decent Champagne if truth be told, but I did indulge with a few select bottles including the 3 that I am about to mention to you. Indeed if I had not taken a break from writing they would have been my Wines of the Week numbers 31, 32 and 33 – so here they are, better late than never eh?

Wine of the Week 31

Christmas seems to be a time for indulgence, when we consume the sorts of things – and the sorts of quantities – that we deny ourselves the rest of the year. Certainly as soon as the grind is over – about halfway through Christmas Eve I find – I do relax more and start drinking at all sorts of odd times of day that I just would not normally. Nothing gets me into a Christmas mood as much as a Panettone and a bottle of a light Moscato for an early Christmas tea – fine Prosecco is also superb with Panettone and I did indeed drink a superb Prosecco just the other day, but you will have to wait a while to hear all about that magnificent wine.

 

Moscato vines growing on Piemonte’s rolling hills.

2013 Elio Perrone Sourgal Moscato d’Asti
Casa Vinicola Elio Perrone
Castiglione Tinella, Piemonte, Italy
D.O.C.G. Moscato d’Asti

Moscato d’Asti is less fizzy than Asti itself, but tastes very similar and is similarly light light in alcohol – 5% in this instance. This very lightness makes it a gentle way into the indulgences of the Festive season as it doesn’t make you too tipsy and you can drink rather a lot of it too. That all misses the point somewhat though, I like this style os wine because when they are well made – as this example is – they are utterly delicious. Sourgal by the way is the name of the vineyard, as this is a single vineyard wine.

The wine is very pale, with just a little lemony, sherbet colour and the CO2 gives a lovely lacy look to the surface of the wine – gently frothy is another way of putting it. It is the aromas of these wines that get me every time, they smell of delicate candied fruit, especially lemon peel, with the merest touch of brioche too – yes they really do smell of panettone, which is why they go so well together. There are other gorgeous aromas too, touches of orange, flourishes of acacia and white peach, all of which makes it scintillating and joyous to sniff. The palate is soft and very light, lightly effervescent and very fruity with flavours of grapes, peach and lemon peel. The sweetness is there, but it is beautifully balanced and just comes along for the ride rather than dominating. All in all this is delicious and so, so drinkable, enjoy it on its own or with something lightly sweet like fruit or that panettone – 88/100 points.

If you are labouring under the impression that Moscato d’Asti is an old fashioned wine, or that you won’t like it, just try it with an open mind. These wines deliver pure, uncomplicated pleasure and joy to the drinker, go on, you know you want to try it.

Available in the UK for £7.50 a bottle from The Wine Society.
Stockist details in the US are available here.

Red Bordeaux

Map of Bordeaux – click for a larger view – non watermarked PDF versions are available by agreement.

Funny thing Christmas. Lots of us are quite happy drinking wines from across the globe throughout the year, but come Christmas we come over all traditional and start thinking thoughts of Claret. I love Claret, red Bordeaux was my second wine love – after Spain – and the wines continue to excite me, or perhaps I should say are exciting me again as I have made a conscious decision to reengage with Bordeaux wines in recent years.

Well over the festive period two rather splendid Clarets came my way, both were from the superb 2009 vintage, so they were probably too young, but that did not stop them from being hugely enjoyable and impressive, so I have made them both Wines of the Week. What’s more I have only ever stayed in 2 Bordeaux Châteaux and it was these two (but with nearly 30 years between each stay) – coincidence?

Wine of the Week 32 – right bank revelry

Saint-Émilion is a delightful town.

In my mind I have always really been more of a left bank, Médoc kind of guy than a lover of right bank wines. Something about the firm tannic structure of the Cabernet Sauvignon dominated Médoc style appeals to me. Or so I used to think, but don’t people always say that we move to the right as we get older? Well I was most agreeably surprised on 2 recent trips to Bordeaux to find myself falling for the fruity charms of the Saint-Émilion style, as well as the place. Saint-Émilion is an utterly gorgeous town to visit, as long as there are not too many tourists and I was with a group that were put up in a charming and very old Château called Cantin. Most of the properties in Bordeaux are nineteenth century confections rather than genuinely fortified residences, so – much as I like the Second Empire architectural style – the seventeenth century Château Cantin was a bit of a delight. Sadly I did not take many photographs of the Château itself, but if you look at the bottle below, see the label? In the picture the Château has a single turret with a window. Well that was my bedroom and I did take some pictures of the view from it.

Château Cantin – the view from the window in the turret that you can see on the label – that was my bedroom.

2009 Château Cantin 
Saint-Émilion Grand Cru
St. Christophe des Bardes, Saint-Émilion, Bordeaux

Although the building is old, Cantin was in the doldrums for a long time and did not really start making any reputation for itself until the Group Les Grands Chais de France took over the management of it and started investing heavily in the vineyard and winery. 2007 was the first vintage of this new regime and the results have been extraordinary. I watched the harvest come in in 2013 and they seem to take the utmost care with everything. It’s all done by hand with 3 selections to make sure only the good grapes get in. The fermentation takes place in a mix of stainless steel and concrete vats and the wine is aged for 12 months in barrel. The blend is something like 80% Merlot with 10% each of Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon.

The property was originally built by Benedictine monks as a summer residence for the Canon of Saint-Émilion and the name comes from the Latin word cantio, which means song, perhaps after all the evensong that was sung here?

It strikes me that this is a very modern Claret, the colour is an intense, opaque purply, plum black.
The nose is scented with spice, cinnamon and coffee, with rich plum, blackberry and cooked strawberry notes together with dried cranberry and blueberry too.
The palate is medium to full bodied, dense and velvety with loads of ripe, sweet red to black fruit and supple tannins. It really is wonderfully rich and concentrated while being deliciously drinkable, it’s let down just a tad by the alcoholic heat on the finish – it is 14.5%, but the fruit is so lovely you can forgive it. A terrific wine though with rich savoury development characters just beginning to emerge through the puppy fat of its ripe fruit, more complexity will emerge if you age it for another 4 years or so – 90/100 points.

Available in the UK for £24.99 per bottle from Waitrose & Waitrose Cellar.

Wine of the Week 33 – left bank lusciousness

My other Christmas Claret came from Bordeaux’s left bank and more specifically the famous commune / village of Saint-Julien.

The Haut-Médoc’s gravel soils and the Gironde estuary in the far distance.

2009 Château Lagrange
Troisièmes Grand Cru Classé
Saint-Julien, Haut-Médoc, Bordeaux

I stayed at this beautiful, and more classic Second Empire style Château on my first ever trip to Bordeaux back in 1986. In those days I stayed in the grape pickers dorms, whereas nowadays I get a proper bedroom, so some things are looking up! The winery was extensively modernised from the 1980s onwards – when the Japanese Suntory Group purchased it – and this has resulted in the wines becoming brighter, bolder and better in my opinion – I have been fortunate to taste vintages back to 1970.

The blend is 73% Cabernet Sauvignon with 27% Merlot, fermented in stainless steel tanks and then aged for 20 months in oak barrels, 60% of which are new.

I was very impressed by this wine, the colour was deep, crimson-black and opaque. The nose had lifted sweetly ripe cassis, blackberry, black cherry and blueberry as well as smoke, cedar and espresso notes. There was even a fresh floral quality to it which lightened the load somewhat and gave balance. The palate is concentrated sure, but medium-bodied. The fruit however is very concentrated and would easily satisfy those seeking full on full-bodied wines. Clearly there is plenty of oak – the oaky / espresso quality follows through on to the palate – but there is so much ripe fruit – blackcurrant, blackberry, black cherry – that they balance each other beautifully, neither dominates the other. The tannins too are very ripe and seductive, so they do not seem astringent, but they are there, so the wine will age. There is a little of acidity and minerality too, which also show that it will age if you want to keep it and which freshen up the palate and stop it cloying. Right now though it that richness and softness and sweetly ripe rich fruit that the wine is all about and it delivers almost sensual pleasure and delight. A terrific Bordeaux that is joyous now or will repay cellaring for a good number of years – 92/100 points.

Available in the UK for £39.99 from Lidl.
US stockist information is available here.

Both of these Clarets were a real treat and put a smile on the face of everyone who tasted them, so if you need something a little special, Bordeaux can deliver the goods at prices that are not too outrageous – leave a little space for the Moscato though…

Happy New Year to you all and let’s hope that 2015 is a good one with peace breaking out everywhere and a modicum of sanity returning to the world.

 

 

 

 

Gavi & Cortese – the place, the grape and a surprise

 

The beautiful landscape of Gavi.

The Santuario di Nostra Signora della Guardia dominates the landscape around Gavi.

I have long had a soft spot for the wines of the Gavi DOCg and consider the best of them to be among the very finest white wines of Italy. My recent trip to the Province of Alessandria in Piemonte was a delight, I loved seeing it all, but one of the highlights was visiting the lovely old town of Gavi and tasting a wide array of the wines produced there.

The view from the Santuario di Nostra Signora della Guardia.

Gavi town

Gavi is made from the Cortese grape which really only gets a starring role in south east Piemonte. It is also grown in the nearby Colli Tortonesi and Monferrato regions as well as in the provinces of Cuneo, Asti and the wider areas of Alessandria to make the slightly more humble wines labelled as Cortese del Piemonte DOC. Outside Piemonte Cortese can be found in Lombardy’s Oltrepò Pavese region and it is also cultivated around Lake Garda where it is used to produce Garda Cortese as well as being used in the blend of Bianco di Custoza.

I have also had one Cortese from Australia that was very enjoyable, but I am surprised, given what nice wines can be made from Cortese, how little the grape is grown and known around the world.

However it is in the rolling hills around the town of Gavi and the 10 outlying communes that Cortese produces its most famous wine – Gavi or Cortese di Gavi which was created as a DOC in 1974 and promoted to DOCg in 1998. Gavi is very much regarded as Piemonte’s pre-eminent white wine and as such the production zone is very small, it produces less than 2% of all Piemonte’s wine and covers just 11 communes or villages , of which Gavi itself is the most important and famous.

As for the place name it seems that in ancient times the local people were cave dwellers and Ga Va means land of holes in the local Ligurian dialect.

The rolling hills and vineyards of Gavi.

The area is in Piemonte now, but historically was more associated with Liguria and Genoa, which being on the coast needed more white wine to partner their fish based cuisine. Records show that Cortese has been grown here since at least 1659, but the wine that we know of as Gavi did not appear until 1876 and Gavi’s reliance on Cortese did not fully start until replanting took place after Phyloxerra was beaten in the early years of the twentieth century. In reality Gavi’s reputation and its perception as a quality wine only dates from the 1960s with its fame growing through the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s as new producers created new estates and used modern knowhow to make increasingly better wine.

One thing I learned was that despite its popularity there is no such wine as Gavi di Gavi and that term should not appear on labels. If a wine comes from fruit grown in just one of the 11 communes able to make Gavi then it can be labelled as Gavi del Commune di Gavi – or Bosio, or Carrosio, or Capriata d’Orba, or Francavilla Bisio, or Novi Ligure, or Parodi Ligure, or Pasturana, or San Cristoforo, or Serravalle Scrivia, or Tassarolo.

What’s more these are a single DOCg, they are indivisible and are considered to all be of the same quality – unlike Chianti and Chianti Classico for instance which are separate DOCgs.

Map showing the wines of Piemonte, I will draw a more detailed map soon.

It is a lovely part of the world, hilly in a way that reminded me of Tuscany and surrounded by mountains. The Alps to the north and west, coastal mountains towards Genoa and the Apennines to the east and south. Standing on a hillside just outside Gavi I was struck by the beauty of the place, the excellent exposure to sunlight, which would help ripen the grapes on a well angled slope, but above all the lovely fresh, cooling breeze coming from the Ligurian Sea some 60 kilometres to the south. It is this cooling wind together with the chalky soils that helps keep the freshness, acidity and balance in the wine that makes Gavi’s reputation and ensures this is a fine white wine region.

As I say, I tasted a great many different Gavis and I can truthfully say that none of them were disagreeable in any way. Most of them were what I would term reliable and I would have happily drunk any of them at all at the right price and in the right setting. Sadly a few were a little lacking in character and excitement, but luckily the others more than made up for it.

It’s strange that Gavi is so often talked about as a high acid wine, well actually most of the examples I tasted had medium acidity at most, which made them softer than I had expected and hoped for, as it also made them somewhat anodyne. For me the heights were reached when the wines had a more thrilling and zesty level of acidity that lifted them to a different level and emphasised Gavi’s much vaunted, but not always seen, minerality. For me at least it is that minerality and vibrant acidity that gives the wine its real finesse, elegance and excitement.

The Wines
As I said, all the wines are agreeable, but some were superb, and these were my absolute favourites:

Azienda Agricola Morgassi Superiore
This wonderful, and innovative winery is very new as it was only founded in 1993. Marina and Cecilia Piacitelli farm 50 hectares of steep south and southwest facing hillsides and have achieved amazing success in that short time. I really liked all Morgassi’s wines and their labels are very beautiful too, as are their vineyards. They even produce a delicious example of the rare Timorgasso grape, which has to be labelled as Timorgasso Monferrato Bianco DOC rather than Gavi because it is not made from Cortese grapes.

Azienda Agricola Morgassi Superiore.

2013 Morgassi Superiore Tuffo
Azienda Agricola Morgassi Superiore
Gavi del Commune di Gavi DOCg
Very pale, citrine and bright, silvery with a little touch of lime.
The palate is lovey and taut with great acidity, green fruit, more freshness and minerality and complexity, there is even a nice touch of weight to the palate too and lovely balance. The finish is pretty long and there is a touch of attractive peach stone bitterness. Really lovely stuff and nicely balanced – 90/100 points.

2010 Morgassi Superiore Volo
Azienda Agricola Morgassi Superiore
Gavi del Commune di Gavi DOCg
This Riserva level wine is a careful selection of the best fruit on the estate and spends 9 months ageing on the lees and is then aged for at least 18 months in bottle before release.
Bright citrine leemony, lime hue with more obvious vore viscosity.
More creamy, smoky aromas, that could be mistaken for oak even though there isn’t any.
Fatter more rounded palate with savoury leesy flavours and touch of cheese in the texture, savoury, bready, herbal and creamy. Very good weight, the acidity is masked a bit, but very good and zesty. Lovely texture, good length and the finish has some real fat to it. – 91/100 points.

Azienda Agricola La Ghibellina

The beautiful vineyards at Azienda Agricola La Ghibellina.

Probably my favourite visit in Gavi, and not just because they served us a superb buffet. Again this is a very new venture, founded as recently as 2000 by Alberto and Marina Ghibellini. Again the estate is small, just 20 hectares of south facing slopes that form a sort of amphitheatre giving perfect aspect to capture the sun’s rays and the cooling sea breezes from the south. Gavi is the focus, but they also make some red wines and Chiaretto rosé that are labelled as Monferrato DOC as Gavi is solely for white wines made from Cortese.

2013 Laghibellina Mainìn
Azienda Agricola La Ghibellina
Gavi del Commune di Gavi DOCg
This is Gavi as I imagine it to be, with a crisp, mineral character and high acidity, reminiscent of good Chablis. The wine is aged 4 months on the lees to help develop complexity.
Very bright and shiny with a pale silvery lime colour.
Very fresh, lively lime aromas, together with a touch of pear and zingy peach.
Nice pure mineral and zesty limey style, crisp, good acidity and some rich rich citrus fruit on the palate.
There is real tension here and a stony crisp acidity. This is a very fine wine with lovely citrus fruit and a long finish, thrilling acidity and minerality – 91/100 points.

2011 Laghibellina Altius
Azienda Agricola La Ghibellina
Gavi del Commune di Gavi DOCg
This Riserva level wine is a selection of the best fruit on the estate and spends 8 months ageing on the lees.
Deeper colour with a touch more gold.
Concentrated rich peachy fruit aroma with  leesy notes, cream, cheese and caramel.
Broader palate with a rich texture, smoky flavours, peach fruit and peach skin too. The acidity is there on the finish, but the succulence and fleshy, fat texture dominate, with succulent peach and nectarine fruit. The finish has a little bitter nutty, peach stone character – 91/100 points.

Azienda Agricola Gian Piero Broglia
Sadly we did not visit this producer, but we enjoyed a stunning lunch with them in the wonderful Cantine del Gavi restaurant – if you are anywhere near the area do try and get there. Everything they served me was superb from the wild boar salami to the two pasta courses, and the scrumptious zabaglione to the home made amaretti biscuits with the coffee.

The beautiful dining room in the Cantine del Gavi.

The first pasta course.

 

The second pasta course – Ravioli originates in the area and some people say there was a chef or family called Raviolo whose name was given to the stuffed pasta.

The main course, Chema a typical genoese dish of sliced meatloaf stuffed with vegetables and served with Genoese pesto – what’s more it was delicious.

The zabaglione, one of the best desserts I have ever tasted – it was served hot and had frozen raspberries at the bottom.

Piero Broglia, chairman of the Gavi Conzorzio, owner of Azienda Agricola Gian Piero Broglia and our host for lunch.

The La Meirana estate is very old indeed and records show that some of it had vineyards on it as long ago as 971. The Broglia family purchased it in 1972, having first renovated a beautiful villa in Gavi. Piero took the estate over from his father in 1974 and they have never looked back. In many ways La Mairana is considered the quintessential Gavi as it makes beautifully elegant, mineral wines of great finesse and vitality and farm some of the oldest vines in the region.

2012 Broglia La Meirana
Azienda Agricola Gian Piero Broglia
Gavi del Commune di Gavi DOCg
5 months ageing on the lees with no malolactic fermentation.
Enticing pale appley cream colour with slightly green hints.
The aroma gives nice delicately cream notes with pear and apple fruit. together with some gentle, leesy, smoky aromas.
The palate feels elegantly weighty, with pear, apple and melon fruit. There is a fresh, soft acidity, too which gives a rounded and creamy mouthfeel.
All in all it is very attractive with steely minerality on the finish. A beautiful wine that would go with all sorts of dishes, but was especially good with the Ligurian food they served – 90/100 points.

2012 Bruno Broglia
Azienda Agricola Gian Piero Broglia
Gavi del Commune di Gavi DOCg
A Riserva level wine made from a parcel of vines on the La Meirana estate called Fasciola. These vines were planted in 1953 and 1955 and produce a wine with great concentration and which is named in honour of Piero’s father. It is unasked, but spends 6 months on the lees.
A deeper colour, like creamy pear juice.
The nose was aromatic, gently cheesy and creamy, with herbs, flowers and pear, together with delicate peach notes and some gentle spice too.
Very rounded palate with lovely freshness of acidity with minerality and an earthy, ashy character, touch of almond bitterness to the finish too. Lovely soft, creamy texture, very rich finish, long with lovely balance. This is a fine, fine wine and quite delicious too – 92/100 points.

Over lunch and during the tasting that followed I was also hugely impressed by these Gavis:

2013 Minaia
Nicola Bergaglio
Gavi del Commune di Gavi DOCg
Very pale, pear juice colour with a dash of lemon.
Pear drop aromas, herbs and onion seed, all very delicate though.
Lovely palate, soft acidity, gentle mouthfeel, just fresh enough to be lively, but with pear juice succulence.
Very attractive wine – 89/100 points.

 

2013 La Fornace
Azienda Agricola Bergaglio Cinzia
Gavi del Commune di Tassarolo DOCg
I loved this wine with its thrilling acidity and minerality and it came from a different commune too.
Bright, pale colour, a sort of silvery lemon and lime.
Leesy nose, with citrus and apple skin notes, floral blossom and acacia, all in all very fresh and attractive.
Nice intensity of peach and green apple fruit, and good acidity with some texture of fruit, nicely mineral too making it feel clean and zesty. Very good balance, concentrated and fine with lively acidity, great length and a twist of peach stone bitterness at the end – 92/100 points.

A sparkling surprise
I was very excited to be served some sparkling Gavi too. I knew they existed, but had never tasted one before and I was very impressed. Prosecco and Franciacorta get all the fame and plaudits for Italian sparkling wine, but from the examples I tried, sparkling Gavi – and by extension sparkling Cortese – can be really good and perhaps more exciting too. Some are made fizzy by the tank method, and can be very enjoyable as this one shows, but the best are made using the traditional method – metodo classico in Italian – and the extra finesse and complexity really show.

The beautiful vineyards at Azienda Agricola Magda Pedrini – courtesy of Azienda Agricola Magda Pedrini.

2011 Magdalena Pedrini Metodo Classico Gavi Brut
Azienda Agricola Magda Pedrini, Tenuta Nuova Cà da Meo
Gavi del Commune di Gavi DOCg
Cà de Meo is a hamlet – or lieux-dit – within Gavi and it is very old indeed, with a history dating back at least as far as the fifteenth century. Magdalena Pedrini’s estate covers 10 hectares on 3 natural south facing amphitheatres that catch the sun and those vital sea breezes. Sadly I have not yet visited, but if all the wines are as good as this, then I really should.
Very fine wine with a lovely biscuity caramel nose. The palate has a fine mousse, rich apple and apple skin flavours some butterscotch and mealy character. Very good indeed with lovely acidity, balance and complexity. The freshness shows well and there is lovely richness too making it a brilliant fizz. We enjoyed it as an aperitif with some salami to nibble on, but it would partner anything you can eat while drinking Champagne  – 92/100 points.

I think you can see that there is a lot to enjoy in Gavi. There are a great many perfectly enjoyable wines and lots of flashes of brilliance – from producers like those mentioned above – which lift Gavi up into the ranks of world class wine regions and put it firmly with the best white wines and sparkling wines of Italy.

I leave you with a view of the dramatic fortress which dominates the skyline of the town of Gavi as it has done since it was first built in 973.

Gavi fortress.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Piemonte Part 1 – first taste of Monferrato

Vignale in Monferrato.

I experienced my first wine trip to Piemonte the other week and I really enjoyed it. The countryside is beautiful, the variety of landscapes in a small area is quite extraordinary – totally flat around the Po Valley, but with the towering Alps just to the north, while the rolling hills in the south morph into a coastal range of mountains towards Liguria and the sea. The towns and villages are delightful too, the food is memorable and the people are very welcoming. There is a great deal to enjoy in Piemonte and I recommend a visit, oh and the wines are wonderful too and come in an amazing array of different styles from a plethora of grape varieties, some well known, but some quite obscure.

As soon I told people that I was going to Piemonte they jumped to the conclusion that I would be visiting Barolo, but actually my destination was the much less well known Monferrato region. Monferrato covers the provinces of Alessandria and Asti, I was visiting the bit in Alessandria. For most of the time was I based in the lovely provincial town of Acqui Terme, which was originally a Roman Spa town and the bollente, or hot spring, still bubbles up in the town centre.

Il bollente, the water comes out at 75˚C.

Monferrato
The Monferrato D.O.C. is pretty hard to pin down. It covers great swathes of territory that look and feel very different. The D.O.C. itself can use all sorts of different grapes and incorporates the territories of other wines within its boundaries, Gavi D.O.C.G. being the most famous. It also includes much of the Asti territory, so allowing many producers to make Asti, Mosacto d’Asti as well as Barbera d’Asti. The overall effect is a quite beguiling hotch potch of wine names that straddle and overlap each other.

Map showing the wines of Piemonte, I will draw a more detailed map soon.

The region is divided in to two by the Tanaro River. In the north the Basso Monferrato – or Monferrato Casalese – is an open land of rolling hills that give way to the plains of the Po Valley. To the south there is the Alto Monferrato, which is a hilly and mountainous land that forms part of the Apennines. Culturally the whole region is diverse with Piemontese, Genoese and Ligurian influences in the food. Asti and neighbouring Alba are also centres of truffle production and they are also important in the cuisine.

The most widely grown grape, the signature grape for the region is the generally under appreciated Barbera. Many others are used though, including Gavi’s Cortese, Nebbiolo, Dolcetto, Freisa  and Grignolino and I will write more about those another day.

Looking towards the Alps from Marenco’s vineyards in Strevi.

Marenco
There were many highlights on this trip and I will write about some of them soon, but one of my favourite winery visits was to the Casa Vinicola Marenco. This family winery is run by three sisters, Michela, Patrizia and Doretta, who are the third generation of the Marenco family to run the family business, interestingly the next generation is entirely male.

The Marenco winery.

Michela Marenco picking cherries for us to eat.

Our little group enjoying the cherries, that’s me front left looking serious – photo courtesy of Paul Balke.

Marenco are based in the lovely quiet town of Strevi midway between Gavi and Asti – which is an important area for Moscato (Muscat) production and Moscato Passito di Strevi is the tiny local speciality D.O.C. for a dessert wine made from dried Moscato grpes. All their wines were excellent, but the ones that thrilled me the most were:

2013 Marenco Scarpona Moscato d’Asti 
Casa Vinicola Marenco
Strevi
D.O.C.G. Moscato d’Asti

Moscato d’Asti is less fizzy than Asti itself, but tastes very similar and is similarly light light in alcohol – 5.5% in this instance. This single vineyard wine from the Scarpona slope is an exceptionally fine example with a purity, elegance and finesse to it, so much so that it tastes drier than it is, even though it has 130 grams of sugar per litre.

The wine is very pale and delicately frothy rather than fizzy and the CO2 settles on the surface like lace. It is wonderfully aromatic with floral and delicately peachy notes and candied lemon peel making it smell like a freshly opened panettone. The palate is light and fresh with that frothy feel, a slight creamy intensity, and although it is sweet it also tastes very clean, fresh and lively. Candied citrus, light peach and zesty orange flavours dominate. A joyous hedonistic delight of a wine, try it with some fruit, a panettone or a simple sponge cake – 90/100 points.

Click here for UK stockist information for Contero Moscato d’Asti as Scarpone is not available in the UK.
Click here for US stockist information.

Marenco’s Scarpona vineyard.

2013 Pineto Marenco Brachetto d’Acqui
Casa Vinicola Marenco
Strevi
D.O.C.G. Brachetto d’Acqui

The rarer red equivalent to Moscato d’Asti, this is made from the Brachetto grape, which is a local speciality. The grape is thin skinned, so makes pale wine, but is tannic, like Nebbiolo and is made sweet to balance the tannins in the wines, as many Nebbiolos were until the late nineteenth century. Marenco farm their Brachetto grapes in the Pineto Valley, hence the wine’s name.

In many ways this is like a red partner to the Moscato, with a similar character, lightly sparkling and low alcohol of 5.5%. It has 125 grams of sugar per litre, but tastes drier.

The colour is red cherry or cherry-ade even with that lacy, frothy top. It smells of tangy red fruit, cherry and strawberry, with a touch of cherrystone bitterness too. Frankly the palate tastes like a really good Black Forest Gateau and it would be the perfect partner to it too. This is so, so delicious that I could not stop drinking it – 91/100 points.

I cannot, for the life of me imagine why these two wine styles are not more popular in the UK, they just deliver pure pleasure to your senses – go on, please, I beg you, give them a try. Sadly you won’t find these two particular wines in the UK as Marenco’s distributer, Liberty Wines, sell the Moscato d”Asti and Brachetto d’Acqui from the Contero estate. Luckily Contero is also owned by Marenco and the wines are equally fine.

Click here for UK stockist information for Contero Brachetto d’Acqui.
Click here for US stockist information.

I was also delighted with this red wine produced in a more normal dry style:

2010 Marenco Red Sunrise Albarossa
Casa Vinicola Marenco
Strevi
D.O.C. Piemonte

Albarossa is an unusual grape that is just beginning to catch on in this part of Piemonte and I tasted quite a few, but this was definitely my favourite example. In case you have never heard of it, and I hadn’t, it is a cross of Chatus (Chat-ooo) with Barbera. The position is confused somewhat by the widespread belief that Chatus is a form of Nebbiolo, so some people tell you that Albarossa is a cross of Nebbiolo and Barbera, both native to Piemonte, but that is not the case. This confusion probably arose because Chatus is known as Nebbiolo di Dronero in the Alba region of Piemonte.

The wine is cold fermented in stainless steel tanks and 50% was aged for a year in large oak casks.

As you might expect from this area the wine is red, quite a vivid crimson in fact.
The nose offers a mix of floral and earthy notes, stones, black fruit and red too, especially plums and stewed cherries, with a dash of tobacco.
The palate is soft and marked by rich smoky fruit, red and black, the texture is supple, deep and velvety, with slightly gamey, savoury flavours. All the while there is excellent balance between the lovely acidity, concentrated fruit and soft gamey, ripe tannins. I enjoyed this wine very much and was very excited to try something so completely unexpected. There is a Nebbiolo like feel to it at times, it is overwhelmingly savoury, but the fruit is richer and the tannins softer. I think this is a very fine wine and my favourite Albarossa so far – 90/100 points.

Click here & here for UK stockist information. Also contact Liberty Wines.
Click here for US stockist information.

I think you can probably tell that I was completely bowled over by Marenco and loved visiting them. The vineyards were very beautiful, their wines were superb, the people were lovely and they have real passion for their land and their wines, and it shows. Do try them if you can, you won’t regret it. I will be writing much more about my trip to Piemonte, but Marenco was a real highlight.

 

Quality, convenience & a great deal of pleasure

Time was when your local corner shop was the last place you would turn to buy a bottle of wine. I well remember how they used to be, a jumbled assortment of wines with no apparent selection process, vaguely arranged on the shelves with price tags guaranteed to make you wince.

Well it seems that that might all be in the past, at least at Spar stores. We all take Spar stores for granted, there they are on most shopping parades all over the country supplying us with emergency bread and milk and a few other bits and pieces. Well recently I have tasted quite a few of their wines and I have to say that I have been impressed.

The range that I tried consisted of smart, well sourced and sensibly priced wines that hit the spot time and time again. It seems to me that the quality of the Spar wine offer now means that they will no longer be the wine shop of last resort, but somewhere customers can rely on as to provide some really very good bottles of wine.

What’s more they have their 5th Annual Wine Festival coming up which will allow you to try their wines at specially reduced promotional prices.

Red

2012 Modesta Grenache-Syrah-Mourvèdre
D.O. Valencia, Spain
Opaque purple damson colour, bright.
Plummy, fragrant, bright and fruity.
Chunky fruit, some spice and a feel of happy freshness. The texture is satisfyingly chewy with a sappy quality.
Soft tannins and rich fruit make this very enjoyable and very versatile. Extremely drinkable with or without food – 86/100 points.

Available from Spar shops at £7.00 – on promotion from 20th March – 7th May 2014 for £4.00

2010 Spar Chianti
D.O.C.g Chianti, Tuscany, Italy
Nose of damsons, rich cherries and red berries with a touch of smoke, fragrant spice and flowers.
The palate is smooth and discretely juicy with lovely ripe red plum and cherry fruit supported by soft tannins, subtle oak and a seam of fresh, cleansing acidity. This was either a delight or I seriously wanted a drink! Perfect with pasta and a multitude of Italianate dishes – 87/100 points.

Available from Spar shops at £7.29

2009 Valle Vento Barolo
D.O.C.g Barolo, Piemonte, Italy
Made by the lovely people at the Araldica cooperative this is a very modern and fruity Barolo.
Deep ruby colour, not opaque, with a slightly orange rim.
Nice earthy nose, orange peel and savoury mushrooms, even some meat notes.
A very supple palate, smooth and very drinkable. The astringent dryness comes through on the finish much more as do the rose petals and earthy characters. The tannins are there, but not harsh, for a Barolo it is very fruity and upfront, which makes it very attractive and enjoyable – 87/100 points.

Available from Spar shops at £14.99 – on promotion from 20th March – 7th May 2014 for £12.00

White

2011 Gavi
D.O.G.g Gavi, Piemonte, Italy
This was also made by the splendid Araldica cooperative this is a nice, easy drinking Gavi.
Citrus and orange blossom aromas lead to a gentle palate with soft acidity and a touch of almond about it. There is a touch of minerality and a slight creamy feel that makes it feel quite elegant. A very enjoyable, user friendly dry white wine – 86/100 points.

Available from Spar shops at £7.29 – on promotion from 20th March – 7th May 2014 for £6.00

2012 Sancerre La Valle des Vignes
A.C. Sancerre, Loire Valley, France
Fresh, citric, grassy and elderflower nose.
Green tinged palate with quite rich, soft ripe green fruit and the merest hint of apricot and a juicy palate.
Nicely made, modern, bright and drinkable, not really crisp but very attractive and very drinkable – 87/100 points.

Available from Spar shops at £11.99 – on promotion from 20th March – 7th May 2014 for £9.00

Sparkling

NV Perlezza Prosecco Brut
D.O.C. Prosecco, Veneto, Italy
I’m not always a fan of Prosecco, they can often be a bit simple and somewhat sweeter than I want, but this is a very nice sparkling wine. Unusually dry and not too cloyingly aromatic, it is elegant, refreshing and crisp with a steely edge and taut appley fruit.
Incredibly versatile and clean as a whistle – 87/100 points.

Available from Spar shops at £9.00 – on promotion from 20th March – 7th May 2014 for £6.00

These were all good wines that I tasted on their own and again with food. They were well made, stylish and very enjoyable, perhaps not the most profound wines or finest and most complex examples of their type, but they were all very enjoyable to drink – I know I certainly derived a great deal of pleasure from drinking them.

So next time you are in your local Spar, stick a bottle of Prosecco in your basket as well as the milk and the hobnobs.