Of all wine regions of the world, Piemonte has won my heart 💖.
Piemonte is a wine region to which grape varieties are the key. The region's great, intense, subtly perfumed, alcoholic, long-lived, occasionally unbearably tannic red wines owe everything to the finicky, local speciality, the late-ripening Nebbiolo vine (supposedly named after the fog). Yet enormous quantities of much juicier lively Barbera and softly mouth-filling Dolcetto are also grown, as well as some local rarities such as strawberry-flavoured Brachetto, curiously sweet and sparkling Freisa, light and tangy Grignolino and historically interesting Ruché or Rouchet.
Piemonte is home to a variety of local white grape specialities, which to my palate share delicacy, dryness and an aroma that often reminds me of ripe pears. Erbaluce makes small quantities of sweet white wine but the most prolific white grape of Piemonte is Muscat, which is responsible for oceans of Asti and various other featherlight, grapey Moscatos, many of which are spumante. Some of the finest palates in the wine business are now great fans of the best examples of the smartest category, Moscato d’Asti. These wines have the great virtue of being extremely light, less than 6% alcohol, refreshingly frizzante and fruitily sweet – which makes them a good choice for serving with dessert after a heavy meal. Cortese is the grape of the most respected white, Gavi; the perfumed Arneis has been very fashionable as Roero Arneis while Favorita (the local form of Rolle or Vermentino) is also grown in Roero just north of Barolo and Barbaresco country, which is also famous for its Nebbiolo.
Many of these wines are labelled varietally, as in Barbera d'Asti, Nebbiolo d’Alba and Langhe, Dolcetto di Diano d’Alba, Dogliani and Roero are other important DOCs and DOCGs. One of these wines labelled Nebbiolo can offer some of Piemonte's dark, satanic majesty in a bottle at a fraction of the cost of a great Barolo or Barbaresco, although so can some of the best Barbera. Barbera is grown in great quantity all over the region and used to be regarded as the light, tart, quaffing wine to be drunk as young as possible. However, its fortunes have changed entirely with the widespread adoption of small French oak barrels for maturing the produce of low-yielding Barbera vines.
If you want to experience the Piemonte taste, you can do this in Curacao @de_wijnjuf_curacao.
Comments