Bricco Mondalino Grignolino 2008

Continuing my indigenous Piedmontese grape varieties series, here is Grignolino. This one is far less obscure than Quagliano or Nascetta. There is around 1,000 ha of Grignolino grown in Piedmont, and it considered one of the region’s traditional wines.

The grape’s written tradition is two centuries old, but the variety itself is most probably much older. The style of wines it produces, too, is somewhat antique. It is the exact opposite of the fashionable modern red: low alcohol, low fruit (the bouquet is most often herby, vegetal, sometimes spicy), high acids, zesty tannins, and most significantly, very little colour – the wine is often qualified as rosé, while to me, it is reminiscent of what is called vin gris in the Loire: a palish red verging on grey. An old Italian dictionary I have at home defines Grignolino as a vino da pasto, secco e leggermente amarognolo (food wine, dry and slightly bitterish); bitterness is, as we know, the modern consumer’s greatest enemy. Poor old chap, Grignolino. Apparently nobody cares anymore. It continues to be made in the region around Asti and Casale Monferrato, its two last strongholds, but mostly to cater for the dying race of Piedmontese pensioners to wash down a carne cruda or agnolotti pasta.

The problem is that Grignolino cannot really make a more ‘attractive’ wine. Its name is probably derived from grignole, dialectal for pips, meaning that if maceration is not kept very short, they release a large amount of very bitter tannins, making the wine undrinkable. But short vatting means less colour. Late ripening also results in little body and fruit intensity. Traditionally, Grignolino was used as a blending grape to lighten up some hefty Barberas (and Freisas, not much seen today) from Asti. It is rarely proposed as a bottled varietal wine. Two examples I have tasted regularly and can recommend are by Braida and Marchesi Alfieri.

Today’s wine, Grignolino del Monferrato Casalese Bricco Mondalino 2006, is a different animal. A super-premium Grignolino produced by the small estate of Bricco Mondalino, it comes from a small 400-hectare DOC specialised in the grape. It retains all of its typical characteristics, but magnifies them into a wine of excellent intensity and character. First of all, there is the inimitable, pale ruby-pink colour that will make a Shiraz lover shiver with horror:

Good nose, full of sweet fruit (strawberries, raspberries and cherries), also a bit flowery; fleshy and racy. Palate is juicy and very clean, less full perhaps than you would expect from the nose: outstandingly fresh and driven, and also bitingly tannic. Subdued, pink- and grey-fruity, this remains what Grignolino usually is, a light-bodied fruit-driven wine with not great structural or architectural pretensions. There is also plenty of alcohol for Grignolino (14%, instead of the grape’s usual 12%), but it is well integrated. This is such a useful style of wine, and unjustly neglected today.

If you’re interested with Grignolino’s various clones and technicalities, see here.