The Wines of Piedmont: Italian Nobility

 

Headlined by the ethereal reds of Barolo and Barbaresco, Piedmont’s wine culture is Italy’s most diverse, and distinctive.

 

For a wine lover, Piedmont in late October is the greatest place on earth. In the Langhe hills southeast of Turin, the town of Alba becomes the epicenter of Italian gastronomy, with each glass of wine and each plate of food infused with the heady scent of the earth.

 

At the same time that Alba’s vintners are harvesting nebbiolo grapes for their Barbaresco and Barolo wines, weatherbeaten truffle-hunters are out in the woods with their dogs, unearthing the tartufi bianchi (white truffles) that so beautifully complement the wines. Hilltop villages such as La Morra, in the heart of the Barolo wine zone, or Neive, one of the key towns in the Barbaresco appellation, are the essence of Piedmontese wine culture: Here the serpentine roads climb hillsides carpeted with vines, each curve revealing a signpost for a winery, each vineyard carefully delimited (and named) based on its position in relation to the sun.

 

Piedmontese wine is complex, yet simple: To really get it, all you need is to sit in the Ristorante Belvedere in La Morra, look out the window at the startling vineyard panorama, and stick your nose into a glass of Barolo – preferably as someone grates truffles over a dish of butter-drenched agnolotti. What else is there?

 

Of course, there’s a lot to Piedmont besides Barolo and Barbaresco, but any discussion of the region’s wines starts here, and with the nebbiolo grape. Along with the sangiovese of Tuscany, nebbiolo is considered Italy’s greatest indigenous red, and although it is grown throughout Piedmont, it reaches its greatest heights of expression in the Langhe.

 

Barolo and Barbaresco are towns, both situated near Alba, which lend their names to the wine zones in and around them. In both areas the soils are rich in limestone, often taking on a whitish hue during the summer, and vineyard altitudes reach heights of 300 meters or more. Piedmont is ringed by Alps, giving it a “continental” climate, and nebbiolo often struggles to ripen fully. Nebbiolo is thought to be derived from nebbia, the Italian word for “fog,” and it is indeed very foggy and moist in Piedmont in October, when the grape is typically harvested.

 

As expressed in Barolo and Barbaresco, as well as nearby Roero and a string of northeastern Piedmont wine zones such as Gattinara and Ghemme, nebbiolo is not very deep in color, but it is quite tannic and powerfully aromatic, usually mingling scents of dried cherries and roses with those of tar, cedar, and earth. Like pinot noir, nebbiolo is very expressive of the place in which it is grown, and, like Burgundy, Barolo and Barbaresco are places where a culture of “single-vineyard” wines dominates. Throughout the Langhe the best vineyard sites (those having some type of southern exposure) are planted to nebbiolo. Throughout Barolo and Barbaresco, the choicest single vineyards, often referred to with the French term cru, have names that are regularly seen on wine labels, such as “Brunate,” “Cannubi,” or “Santo Stefano.” Although these delimited vineyards are not officially rated, as the crus of Burgundy are, the cultures are similar; these are places where several winemaking families may own a small parcel of the same vineyard, and where the primacy of place defines the winemaking aesthetic.

 

Aside from nebbiolo, the other well-known red grapes of Piedmont are the fruity, high-acid barbera, and the deeply colorful, sweetly aromatic dolcetto. Barbera and dolcetto are nebbiolo’s supporting players, typically planted in sites not suitable for nebbiolo, and are more immediately accessible and fruit-forward than the sharp and spicy nebbiolo.

 

The area of southeastern Piedmont bounded by Alba, Asti, and Alessandria is the domain of barbera, a luxurious red that has become every bit as popular as nebbiolo as winemakers have softened its rough edges. Deep red-cherry fruit is a hallmark of the variety, while in dolcetto the flavors tend towards darker, blacker fruits and the aromas more toward violets and plums. Dolcetto wines were traditionally reminiscent of Beaujolais, but these days producers are often going for a denser, blacker style, most especially in the dolcetto-centric zone of Dogliani, south of Alba.

 

Overall, Piedmont is the seventh-most productive winemaking zone in Italy, and about 70 percent of the wine produced in the region is red. Of all the regions of Italy, Piedmont has the greatest number of delimited wine zones, or DOC(G)s, with more than 50 in total – a large portion of which are clustered in the Alba-Asti-Alessandria area. In addition to the nebbiolo-based reds of Barolo, Barbaresco, Roero, and Gattinara, and the multitude of geographically specific reds from barbera and dolcetto (i.e. Barbera d’Asti; Dolcetto di Dogliani), Piedmont is rich in oddball local reds such as brachetto (an sweet and aromatic red often used for dessert wines), freisa (another floral, aromatic red, though typically vinified dry), and ruche (also a fruity and fragrant dry red).

 

On the white side, Piedmont is known for chalky dry whites from the Gavi DOCG, a zone in the extreme southeast of the region that the cortese grape calls home. In the aforementioned Roero zone, just west of Barolo, the perfumy arneis grape, once used to keep bees and birds away from nebbiolo, has blossomed into a popular wine in its own right. And in the Alpine hills northeast of Turin, another flinty Piedmontese white, erbaluce, is finding its way onto American tables in both still and sparkling versions.

 

And then there’s moscato.

 

On the one hand, Piedmont’s historic affiliation with the French House of Savoy led to its faster development as a quality winemaking zone in relation to other parts of Italy. Yet Piedmont was also the center of Italian industrialization in the 19th and 20th centuries. Along with the rise of Fiat came a certain industrialization of the wine market, best exemplified by the sparkling-wine and vermouth houses such as Gancia, Cinzano, Contratto, Coppo, Bosca Riccadonna, and Martini & Rossi. Many Americans of a certain generation were introduced to Piedmontese wine via Asti Spumante, the light, sparkling aperitif made from the moscato grape. And though our tastes in sparkling wines have since shifted, it is hard to beat the delicate sweetness and aromatic intensity of moscato with dessert. These days the frizzante, or semi-sparkling, version of moscato, Moscato d’Asti, is king – a refreshing way to finish off a hearty Piedmontese meal.

 

Piedmontese wine is about great tradition and constant innovation. In the Langhe, those same winemakers who’ve turned Barolo into the Burgundy of Italy are looking to France for white-wine inspiration, producing Piedmontese chardonnays to rival Chablis and Corton. Barrel-aged barberas, loaded with fruit extract and a given an international sheen, are taking on the ready-to-drink reds of California. It all happens in an incomparable locale whose every nook and cranny is devoted to the vine. Cook up some egg noodles, grate some truffles, crack a Barolo and taste Piedmont. This is Italian wine at its finest.