The Wines of Piemonte, Italy: Nebbiolo

It was good to get back on the show after my one week off. We began The Spirits of New Mexico in late December 2013 so we are entering our ninth year. The show has changed from a half hour to hour show. We stop doing craft beers quite a while ago, moved to an hour format and then began on-air tasting of wine in mid-2018. And every bit has been fun; I hope it has been entertaining and informative to our listeners. Thank you all.

This blog is based on the Spirits of New Mexico radio show that aired on January 15, 2022. We do on-air tasting of one or two wines to illustrate what is available in a particular wine region, or as a contrast of what influence a wine region has on a grape or blend. We also contrast wine styles as in the current blog. We use suitable glasses for the type of wine and do a double-decant of red wines to insure they have opened sufficiently for accurate judging.

Italy has more than 500 native grape varieties and at least 175 of those ends up in everyday wines, making Italy one of the most challenging countries to explore and describe in toto. Instead we are focusing on one wine region, but it is one of the country’s premier regions and home to the Nebbiolo, Barbera and Dolcetto grapes. That would be Piedmont or Piemonte, home to some of Italy’s greatest wines.

Major wine regions

There are 15 major wine regions in Italy, which includes the islands of Sicily and Sardinia and another four minor wine regions. There were over 1,700,000 acres of vines under cultivation as of 2016. Sicily, Puglia, Veneto and Tuscany account for 55% of that. Piedmont adds about 8-9% to the total.

Italian quality levels:

The term, Superiore, generally indicates a wine at a higher quality. Reserva is another term that refers to a higher quality wine using select grapes and longer ageing requirements.

• IGP/IGT: Often table wines from broad regional classifications, except for Tuscany
• DOC: There are 329 DOC-rated wines, many offer good value
• DOCG: There are more DOCG wines in Piemonte than any other region: Barolo, Barbaresco, Roero, Ghemme and Gattinara wines are all DOCG.

Piemonte history

During the Risorgimento (Italian unification) of the 19th century, many Piemontese winemakers and land owners played a pivotal role. The famous Italian patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi was also a winemaker. Camillo Benso, conte di Cavour was a wealthy vineyard owner who went abroad to study advances in viticulture prior to founding the political newspaper Il Risorgimento. He was highly influential in the adoption of many French viticultural techniques among the Piemonte vineyards.

One of the early sparks of the Italian revolts against Austria was the act of the Austrian government to double the tariffs of Piemontese wines into the Austrian-controlled lands of Lombardy, Emilia and the Veneto. This had a crippling effect on the Piemontese wine industry, essentially cutting them off from their main export market.

One has to remember that in those days there was no international market for wine. If you didn’t sell your wines locally, or in a connected region such as Lombardy and Veneto in northeastern Italy, you lost money.

In 1846, King Charles Albert of Sardinia spoke to the Piedmontese winegrowers at the meeting of the Agricultural Congress at Casale Monferrato where he decried the Austrian oppression. By 1848, Piedmont was at war with Austria in one of the early events that eventually led to the unification of the Italian peninsula under the rule of Charles Albert’s son Victor Emmanuel.

Piemonte grapes and terroir

• Nebbiolo: The king of grapes and the grape of kings; how’s that for a moniker. Medium-bodied but with a kicker of a tannic backbone, these wines are best drunk after 5 years to allow the tannins to mellow. Many are good for 40 years or longer.
• Barbera: A great food-pairing grape with sour cherry and licorice with dried herbs. Barbera d’Asti is a Barbera from Asti, Piedmonte.
• Dolcetto: Plum, blackberry and black pepper with lower acidity. Drunk young as most don’t age well. A very popular NM variety that does have good acidity.
• Muscato Bianco: The well-traveled Muscat grape is most commonly used in sparklers, but also makes an excellent still wine in Strevi.
• Gavi di Gavi: This Gavi wine from Gavi is where the best examples of this Cortese grape-based wine are made. Very acidic but the southern, warm part of Piedmonte near Liguria makes superb examples with good minerality similar to Sancerre and Chablis, but with a better price tag.

The Nebbiolo Grape

There are two primary areas of concentration of Nebbiolo within Piemonte. The more southerly region is around Barolo, Barbaresco, Alba and Roero within the broader region of Langhe. The more northerly region is situated around Ghemme and Gattinara and a number of DOC regions. To the west and further north on the border with Val d’Aosta is Carema. The other area of note is Valtellina in neighboring Lombardy which makes a lighter more Pinot Noir-like wine. See the Wine Folly map below for the locations of these areas including Val d’Aosta and Lombardy.

Map courtesy of Wine Folly

Wine Folly Nebbiolo Facts: As always, Wine Folly is the first place we go for wine information that is clear, concise and layered with excellent graphics. So here is a quick snapshot and overview of Nebbiolo.

• Nebbiolo is a very old grape, first being referenced as far back as the 13th Century!
• The name Nebbiolo derives from nebbia, the Italian word for “fog.” This is likely from the white, powder-like natural bloom on the grapes that appears during harvest season. Or, from the fact that the best Nebbiolo sites are located above the fog that collects in the valley.
• Even though Nebbiolo only makes up ~8% of all the grapes grown in Piedmont, more of this grape is grown here than anywhere else in the world. Over 92%, followed by Mexico with 3%.
• Despite being an essential part of two of the country’s premier wines, Nebbiolo is rarely grown anywhere else in Italy. However Nerello Mascalese has very similar characteristics.
• Much like Pinot Noir, Nebbiolo is an incredibly fussy variety to grow. It flowers early, ripens late, and can struggle to ripen fully. It also seems to prefer specific hillside locations and clay- and silt-based soils. In other words it needs good drainage and lots of sun.
• Also like Pinot Noir, Nebbiolo is considered a “terroir-expressive” variety, in that it picks up more of the earth, soil, and climate characteristics versus other grapes, which mean it can taste wildly different depending on where it’s grown.

Nebbiolo Geeky Facts

Even though Nebbiolo wines look deceptively light because of the pale color, while young they do have a richer darker color. However, the color fades quickly. The reason is Nebbiolo’s anthocyanins (polyphenolic pigments) contain few stable colorants and fade by the time the wine is released or consumed.

Since the majority of wine drinkers are averse to waiting a decade for a wine to be drinkable, many of these wines are made softer and more approachable using advanced winemaking techniques such as extended maceration to soften tannin.

Nebbiolo DOCG and DOC locations

Here we cover each DOCG or DOC subregion within Piemonte. Recall that these are defined areas with specific rules to be followed to permit a wine to wear the DOC/DOCG label. That includes permitted grapes and blending percentages and aging requirements.

Barolo DOCG: (est. 1980)

Barolo wines age at least 18 months in the barrel, with a total of three years aging before release. Most traditionally-made examples only start to come around at 7+ years.

• Riserva Wines labeled Barolo “Riserva” are aged for a minimum of five years.
• Vigna on a label indicates a single vineyard wine.
• There are eleven communes with two styles based on the soil being either limestone or sandstone.
• The lighter-tasting wine communes include La Morra and Barolo, with limestone-based soils.
• The bolder-tasting wine communes include Serralunga d’Alba, Monforte d’Alba, and Castiglione Falletto, with more weathered sandstone-clay soils.

Barbaresco DOCG (est. 1980)

The region is based around the towns of Barbaresco, Neive, Treiso and San Rocco Seno d’Elvio. The best Crus are located south of the town of Barbaresco towards the hamlet of Tre Stelle and Treiso.

• Neive produces the most powerful & structured wines.
• Treiso produces the most graceful and refined wines. This region contains tall forests and features temperatures that are noticeably cooler, especially at night.

Despite being made from the same grape and produced in neighboring areas less than 10 miles apart, the wines of Barbaresco and Barolo do have some distinct differences. Located south of the river Tanaro, the Barbaresco zone receives a slight maritime influence which allows Nebbiolo to ripen a little earlier than in Barolo. This allows the grape to get to fermentation earlier with a shorter maceration time. The early tannins in a young Barbaresco are not quite as harsh as Barolo and under DOCG rules it is allowed to age for a year less than Barolo.

Langhe DOC (est. 1994)

An even more approachable style of Nebbiolo comes from the adjoining Langhe area, which surrounds the towns of Barolo and Barbaresco. Eric Asimov in his NY Times wine school covered this region a few years ago, recommending it for that very reason.

Because of the fog that settles in the valleys of this region, the best expression of the Nebbiolo grape is on the slopes of the hills where the Nebbiolo grape can achieve perfect ripeness. Over a year ago we sampled a Massimo Rivetti Langhe from a heroic vineyard at high elevation and steeply-sloped.

What we are tasting: Abbona Langhe 2019 Nebbiolo 13% ABV, $30 at Total Wine

The Total Wine website had this listed as a 2016, but it is a 2019, which is lower in alcohol and obviously a lot younger. As a reminder, it is always a good idea to check the vintage as newer vintages often end up in the same bin with older vintages. I didn’t check the vintage; my bad.

However, I did go back later and dug a 2017 vintage bottle out of the bottom of the bin. This one was at 14%, which puts it closer to the original listing for this wine. I have not tried it as yet.

Gattinara DOCG (est. 1990)

Gattinara is a red Italian wine with DOCG status produced from Nebbiolo grapes grown within the commune of Gattinara which is located in the hills in the north of the province of Vercelli, northwest of Novara in the Piedmont region. It was awarded DOC status in 1967 and received its DOCG classification in 1990.

Made primarily from the Nebbiolo grape variety, known locally as Spanna, constitutes a minimum 90% of the wine and may be blended with up to 10% Bonarda di Gattinara and no more than 4% of Vespolina. The wine is aged in wooden barrels for two years, three for a Riserva, with an additional two years of ageing in the bottle.

“Previously, the red wines of Gattinara were known as very durable but they were also pure acid bombs. Today, the introduction of malolactic fermentation meant that wine is not so angry no, although without it has lost its familiar slightly bitter aftertaste.” Italian Wine Guide

Just to review: malolactic fermentation is routinely performed on red wine grapes, particularly those with higher tannin. This reduces the perceived acidic level as malic acids (as in apples) are changed to lactic acids (as in butter).

Roero DOCG (est. 2004)

The wines from Roero have lived in obscurity for years, but in the 1980s some producers started making wines that clearly stood out in the crowd. Since then, there has been an almost explosive, qualitative development in the zone. Roero is located northwest of Barolo, across the Tanaro River and includes the municipalities of Canale, Corneliano d’Alba and Vezza d’Alba and 16 other municipalities in the Cuneo province.

• Roero was classified as DOC in 1985, but better winemaking and better quality received a DOCG in 2004. It also meant a break with the rather disputed, local rule that required red grapes to be mixed with the white Arneis grape. The vineyard area is 2,082 acres producing 543,000 cases on a 5-year average.
• Roero Rosso is made from the Nebbiolo grape (95-100%), with the permitted addition of local non-aromatic red grapes (max. 5%). The name Roero must appear clearly on the label in order for the red wine to use the DOCG label.
• Roero Rosso is ruby red to garnet in color. It has a fruity, harmonious scent which sometimes has notes of wood from the barrel aging. The taste is dry, often with mild acid in the aftertaste.

The mandatory aging period is 20 months, of which at least 6 months in wooden barrels, starting with November 1st of the harvesting year. A barrel-aged Roero Riserva has a mandatory aging period of 32 months, including six months in barrels. Note the much lower time in oak compared with Barolo.

Ghemme DOCG (est. 1997)

The Ghemme municipality is the center of a powerful red wine, which bears its name. The town lies on the river Sesia, in the Novarra province, just across from Gattinara. In fact, the highway A26 separates the two districts. Ghemme produces a wine often compared with its neighbor across the street, although production is somewhat smaller.

Ghemme is made from Nebbiolo grapes, locally called Spanna, (75-100%) with permitted addition of Vespolina or Uva Rara, locally called Bonarda Novarese (0-25%). The wine has a ruby color with garnet reflections. The aroma is distinctive, inviting and ethereal. This is a tasty, dry and harmonious red wine with a pleasantly bitter aftertaste. The minimum alcoholic is 12%.

In conclusion; where the Nebbiolo grape is planted will tell you much about what to expect from the wine. However winemakers in these areas are moving toward more approachable styles for those of us that cannot wait to open that bottle we just picked up at the store.

Analysis

Since there was only one bottle of wine this time we couldn’t contrast it, but it possessed the brick orange color of a classic Nebbiolo with firm tannin and no bitterness or astringency. In other words a very drinkable if young wine that will still mature for many years. This one makes me eager to try the Abbona 2017 I picked up later.