Barolo and Beyond!
Nadia Verrua of Cascina Tavijn has built a loyal following for her rustic, raw take on Piedmont varieties like Barbera and Ruché (photo by J. Kemp)
The Italian Piedmont started with a bang. Roughly 15 million years ago, the Eurasian and African plates collided, creating the Alps and the rolling hills of the Langhe: home to appellations like Barolo and Barbaresco that have become household names.
But did you know it was Alto Piemonte, not Langhe, that was originally considered the home of Nebbiolo production? Or that it's possible to find refreshing and early-drinking whites among some of the most age-worthy reds in the world?
For our December wine club, we did a deep dive into Piedmont that includes the “Big Bs" of Barolo and Barbaresco as well as less-explored Piedmont regions and grapes. The result is a curation of some of the best wines available from the Piedmont; one that covers a range of styles that helps tell a more complete story of this famous region.
Wine club members already are receiving their selections but we want to share our picks with everyone.
Just a few of the highlights:
The wines of Le Piane in Boca, where Christoph Kunzli is one of the only producers in Piemont still working with Maggiorina-trained vines, an ancient trellising system in which three different vines are grown together and trained across four cardinal points (the end result is vines spread high in four different directions, forming a kind of cup around the planting site.) He is showing why the Nebbiolos from Alto Piemonte were famous among royalty nearly a century before Barolo or Barbaresco's post-WWII boom.
A whole host of natural winemakers in Monferrato, which is a hotbed of natural winemaking due to the region's more rugged landscape of hills, valleys, and wild forests — a drastic contrast to the big money and monoculture of vines in Langhe. Here we have Cascina Iuli, Summer Wolff, Cascina Tavijn, and Val Liberata, showing us a very different side of Piedmont. This is where to find more obscure grapes like Slarina and Baratuciat, varieties that are making wines with more freshness and less alcohol, which is crucial for helping with an increasingly fraught fight against climate change and devastating heat spikes.
And of course there is Barolo and Barbaresco! Canonica (extremely limited), Fratelli Alessandria, Principiano, Cascina delle Rose, and La Ca' Nova are our current recommendations for Barolo and Barbaresco that are made with the highest level of land stewardship and craftsmanship in the Langhe hills. Age them, gift them, drink them with friends and prepare to be moved.
Cheers,
Jonathan Kemp and Kate Masters
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