Wojciech Bońkowski
Master of Wine

Anniversary wines

Sky is the limit

We’ve had an important anniversary in the family, and it was time to bring some really big guns from the cellar. I’ve poured some of the oldest wines in my collection. You don’t drink a bottle from 1938 every weekend.

It was the sort of event that takes weeks if not months of planning. Browsing internet wine shops, enquiring for offers, searching for tasting notes. Pondering a dinner menu, thinking of food & wine matches. Planning a proper ‘trajectory’ for the event. Alternative scenarios, ‘B’ plans (old bottles are often faulty). In the end I’m happy with how smoothly it went. With some helping hands in the kitchen I managed to serve 12 courses with matching wines to a party of 10, steering clear of major disasters. And it all took short of 9 hours.

I’ll spare you a description of the food – reading about bisques, soufflés and chocolates on a blog always sounds a little over-indulgent and of little usefulness – and share a few tasting notes.

Domaine Vacheron Sancerre 2006
This wasn’t served to guests – it was the cook’s aperitif. It’s quite ripe for a Loire Sauvignon, with subdued acidity but an obvious mineral character. A classy wine, though not a monster of expression. But I prefer Vacheron’s clean style in a less ripe vintage.

Pol Roger Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill 1993
A gift from the maison that I’ve cellared since 2003. 1993 was a structured vintage, but never great and now largely overshadowed by the likes of 1996. Yet top cuvées from 1993 are now in top shape – this Churchill surely is. Outstanding from the first to the last drop (not that it lasted long). Fresh, unevolved, poised and mineral. There is some underlying sweetness of dosage but also good vinosity and juiciness. The flavour is very fused, and it’s difficult to give a detailed analysis: perhaps a bit of raspberry atop the more usual notes of brioche and vanilla. Still very young – this can go on for another decade or two. Brilliant wine.
We’ve also had some other champagnes including a crisp, engaging Brut Réserve Rosée (two years since dégorgement) from Philipponnat, whom I find very much on the upswing of late.

Perrier-Jouët Blason de France 1959
I got this bottle from the Barolo–Brunello shop in Germany. The level was a little low and there was some heavy sediment so I knew the risk (and the very amiable owner Stefan Töpler made it clear). Such old bottles are always a hazard. Here, the cork was completely loose and the wine awfully oxidised with no bubbles. Oh well.

Domdechant Hochheimer Domdechaney
Riesling Spätlese 1983
I visited this estate on the Main near Frankfurt in April 2005, and we’ve had a great conversation with owner Dr. Franz Werner Michel. At lunch, this 1983 was served, and enhanced by Michel’s engaging stories, it tasted as good as any mature Riesling ever did. Upon saying our goodbyes we were offered a bottle each of the same wine. As usually with precious wines, it was waiting in my cellar for an ‘occasion’. A very mature wine, with some storage problems perhaps (cork was completely soaked) showing in a musty, unclean nose, though underneath there is some good Firne [aged Riesling] character. Sweeter than expected on the palate, but there is also a greenness to the sweetness and acidity. This bottle showed a bit unremarkable but was surely short of perfectly stored.

Jean-Marc Brocard
Chablis Grand Cru Bougros 1998
As expected from the youngest wine of the afternoon, no problems whatsoever with this bottle. It was part of a mixed case of older vintages I bought at the estate last October. It’s only 35€ – a bargain for a grand cru of any age, let alone a decade old. When tasted in Chablis, it showed very good saline minerality but also quite some oak sweetness. Yet served with food (a saffron-flavoured poule à la crème), the oak disappeared almost completely. It was a lesson in real-life food & wine matching. Crisp, linear, mineral, statuesque almost, showing power and reserve. An excellent wine. Dregs retasted the day after were less exciting, less poised, built around the butter and vanilla I remembered from October. Not bad at all on a hedonistic level though.

Domaine Huët
Vouvray Le Haut-Lieu demi-sec 1961
I got this bottle a couple of years ago from the excellent Bacchus Vinothek in Germany. The price seemed low (50€), and these Vouvrays are known for their ageing potential so I took the plunge. Looking at the intact label and the immaculate cork it’s clear this bottle was at best recorked (and likely refilled?), and at worst it’s not a 1961 at all. It’s an excellent aged Vouvray but it really tastes too young and dynamic to be 48 years old. The colour is also a bit suspect, with green tinges (unlikely in a wine of this age?) to a medium golden whole:

Aromatically it’s dominated by a taut, austere reductive character: not quite stinky but very herby and hayey, with a bit of richness that reminded me of an old Tokaj. On the palate it is very structured with mouth-puckering acidity effectively covering the sweetness, although the demi-sec character is quite pronounced for a wine of this alleged age. There’s also some alcohol (only 12% on the label). A big, structured wine that’s fairly immobile and could easily survive another decade. If you don’t need it to be a genuine 1961 it’s a very fine bottle for the money.

Thierry Allemand Cornas Chaillot 1996
A bin-end from Vienna’s Unger & Klein, sold at 32€ instead of the more usual 60€. Deepish colour especially at core, for the age. It starts fairly barnyardy and reduced on the nose but fortunately isn’t bretty, and with some proper airing this blows off, revealing a fairly engaging nose of crushed raspberries and good vinous depth. Some mild age on the palate but this is far from old. Palate on entry is also pleasant: vaguely varietal and peppery, but the progression is highly disappointing. Basically this just weakens and disappears on the palate. No structure whatsoever: modest acidity (though enough for freshness) and no tannins. There’s a beguiling purity about the whole thing and I can’t say it’s uninteresting but I wouldn’t pay the normal price for it. Perhaps the vintage’s lowly reputation in the northern Rhône is justified after all.

Cosimo Taurino Brindisi Riserva Patriglione 1975
This was another bin-end from a German shop, so obscure they didn’t even know how to price it. Eventually I got away with 35€. In its recent vintages it’s a southern Italian classic I very much enjoy, essentially a modified Salice Salentino (based on the Negroamaro grape) made with an amarone-like technique of drying the grapes to raisins. Fill level is quite and the cork is excellent (certainly recorked) but storage is an issue, as the wine is showing very aged. There’s a leathery, cooked-fruity, vinegary, almost maderised character that some of my diners disliked, though with a bit more experience in Apulian wines I find it fairly typical. This has aged on acidity (and some greenness) but lacks superior dimension or definition. On the other hand a Brindisi red at age 33 in this shape is surely not a bad achievement.

Giacomo Borgogno & Figli Barolo Riserva 1947
It’s another Barolo–Brunello bottle from Stefan Töpler. I paid 149€ for it and whenever I can justify the expense again, I’ll be sure to order some more – an outstanding bottle of wine.
I have had numerous older Barolos from the house of Borgogno, including a fantastically refined 1958, an impressive, brooding 1961 and a gentler 1967. But all came from the producer’s cellar, and were all opened and checked for faults, then refilled with the same wine, recorked and relabelled. Basically you get a Borgogno guarantee that the wine is in good shape. This makes the producer’s prices (the 1961 was 105€ a year ago) even more of a ridiculous bargain.

This bottle was different in that it came from a private cellar and was not refurbished. I can’t tell you much about the cork as at my first attempt to pull it out (with a 2-blade opener instead of a corkscrew) it smoothly dived inside the bottle. But the wine was in fine condition and I must congratulate Mr. Töpler for his sourcing. It’s rare to find wines in such pristine shape even from the 1960s. A moderate amount (i.e., little for the age) of fine-ish sediment. The colour is not bad, surely quite evolved but actually a fairly poetic complex hue ranging from clean ruby at core to amaranth-orange:The one disappointing thing here is the nose. I usually enjoy Barolo as much for its fantastically floral, deep bouquet as for anything else, but here it’s a little lifeless, showing modest notes of raspberries, dominated by a green, briney, animal, damp-cellary, mildly over-the-hill character. But palate is very fresh and alive, with beguiling coffeed complexity. Very good length too. Perhaps not the ultimate Barolo experience (1961, with its remaining power, is more impressive) but very interesting for sure. Last sips at room temperature are really tannic (!), mineral, impressively long and so very much alive.
Kopke Porto Colheita 1938
A half-bottle that was distributed to journos who attended a presentation of old colheita ports from the Sogevinus companies (a holding that was established in 2006 and regroups some of the most prestigious port brands: Barros, Burmester, Cálem and Kopke). No bottling date but likely to have been 2007, shortly before the event. Colour is a transparent brown-amber. For volatility and a salty, marmitey character this is close to a madeira in style. A vestige of pink fruit, crystallised sugar, minor saltiness underneath; not really nutty (unlike most of these old colheitas). Moderate sweetness, high acidity, good (but not extraordinary) length, this is a good example of an aged colheita but frankly unexceptional. The flavour is a bit low and there’s only reasonable complexity; this tastes like a mid-1970s colheita could (and not a greatly structured one at that). Perhaps just an inferior vintage here, as the 1937 was one of the stars of the said tasting.
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No-sulphur wine

Paradise lost

I’ve been quite overloaded with samples lately, many unsolicited, which meant having to make my way through a stash of partly unexciting commercial staff. More or less belonging to this category, some bottles by Piedmontese producer Teo Costa. It’s a largish estate with a confusing dual-branded range of too many wines (although some are quite fine – I was pleasantly surprised with the Barolo Monroj 2004, classic, elegant and very good value).

Two wines that caught my attention, though, are a white and a red made fully without the addition of sulphur. There is currently a (justified) fashion towards organic and biodynamic wines, but even biodynamics is not necessarily synonymous with no sulphur addition. Sulphur (usually in the form of sulphur dioxide; hence the Contains sulphites mention on wine bottles now obligatory in the EU) is considered a ‘traditional’ additive to wine, and has been used for centuries to protect from bacteria and oxidation. These two factors make no-sulphur-added wines (there is always a bit of sulphur naturally produced during fermentation) a challenge. With low SO2, your wine is prone to all sorts of bacteria including acetic bacteria that change wine into vinegar (with no SO2, this is handled by extreme hygiene in the cellar, and keeping wine at low temperatures throughout – not always easy for shops and consumers) and is likely to oxidise if exposed to air for too long (which is why you are usually advised to drink a no-sulphur wine in one session and avoid decanting, though there are some exceptions).

You will find a growing range of interesting low- or no-sulphur wines from Alsace, Beaujolais, the Loire, but very few from Italy, where the concept has been establishing itself more slowly. That’s the background of my interest in trying these wines. Both are from 2008 and are classified in the umbrella DOC Langhe.

The white Di Vin Natura 2008, a blend of Sauvignon Blanc with local Arneis, is forgettable: showing a good saline intensity of terroir in mouth, it just lacks fruit, and the nose is fairly chaotic, reminiscent of of home-made ‘wine’ with all sorts of yeasty, microbial aromas. The red Di Vin Natura 2008 (blended from Nebbiolo, Barbera, Cabernet and Melot), on the other hand, is really interesting. It too displays a rustic just-finished-fermentation nose (aroma is rarely a biodynamic wine’s strength) but on the palate there is a moment of blissful fruit intensity of the kind you almost never encounter in a ‘normal’ wine.

Sulphur puts a wine in order: it is like packing a porcelain vase for shipping. It stabilises, immobilises, and to an extent, standardises. But it does so by putting a layer of matt varnish over the fruit. We get a lot from sulphur – a vast majority of our wines would be undrinkable without – but need to give up something in exchange: this unadulterated, tangible, pulsating presence of fruit flesh. If you’re feeling nostalgic about this loss, no-sulphur wines are for you.

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Cantalupo Ghemme Collis Breclemae 1998

A trustworthy wolf

Time for another wine from Piedmont. In all honesty it doesn’t exactly fall into the ‘rare grapes’ category, being made from the region’s prime variety, Nebbiolo. But it is a particular kind of Nebbiolo called Spanna. A speciality of the Alpine vineyards in the northern part of the region, it is to be found in such classic appellations as Boca, Lessona, Gattinara and Ghemme. These are zones with a very long tradition of winemaking, producing prestigious ageworthy wines that rose to European fame in the 19th century. Compared to Nebbiolo from Barolo and Barbaresco in southern Piedmont, Spanna yields wines that are lighter in colour and body but higher in acidity and with some quite sturdy tannins that need a long, long time in bottle to settle: wines from the 1950s and 1960s are often in very good shape (and affordable). The bouquets are often less fruity and floral, tending towards the herby, meaty and mineral; ‘austerity’ is a good overall descriptor, but ‘finesse’ is too.

All these appellations are quite small: Gattinara today is down to only 95 hectares (historically it was perhaps four times that), Ghemme has 50 registered hectares. In the past wines were produced either by medium-sized aristocratic estates – sort of châteaux – or, more often, blended by small local négociants that offered a couple of labels from each zone. Yields are low, vineyard work costs very high, the wines were often aged in wood and bottle for 6–7 years: a big investment that was often beyond the means of the small farmers. Today négociants are less important, and the best wines are made by medium-sized private estates such as Travaglini and Nervi (in Gattinara), Le Piane (Boca), the new Proprietà Sperino (Lessona), and Antichi Vigneti di Cantalupo in Ghemme.

Cantalupo is a veteran of the Upper Piedmont, having been making good wines since at least the 1960s. Apart from the flagship Ghemme there is a number of interesting labels, including Il Mimo, a rosé Nebbiolo that’s one of Italy’s most exciting, the good white Carolus (which includes a splash of the ultra-rare Greco di Ghemme grape), and Villa Horta, a rare 100% Vespolina (a light, perfumed red grape added to soften harsh Nebbiolo tannins).

At the top of the pyramid we have three crus of Ghemme: Carellae, Breclemae and Signore di Bayard (the only wine here to see small oak, whose is generally discouraged in this district). I have cellared the Ghemme Collis Breclemae 1998 since release, and expected it to be maturing now. But it isn’t – courtesy of the cool 1998 vintage perhaps, but also of the excellent mineral structure of this wine. Colour is a Nebbiolo lightish ruby but no signs of tiring. Nose at first reticent, needs at least 30 minutes’ airing time in glass. A core of clean semi-aged strawberry fruit, melting into an almost chocolatey richness (from maturity, not oak). Not very complex at first but there is not a hint of tertiary character. Palate is really very good, long, fresh and tasty but not particularly acidic. Tannins on finish are firm, and increasingly so with airing time. This wine has poise and stature; it is not austere, but doesn’t give itself away in modernist flatter; it is fresh, authentic, linear and engaging. Overall an excellent bottle, and can / should still wait.

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8 wines from Angelo Gaja

A 500€ tasting
For several years, the Piedmontese star Angelo Gaja has held a trade tasting of his wines in Poland. On our ‘emerging’ market, it is still rare for prestigious producers to see such foresight.

For decades one of the renowned producers of Barbaresco with a large cellar bang in the middle of this tiny village, the Gaja operation has spread to three different zones in two Italian regions. Apart from the classic Barbaresco & Barolo wines (themselves undergoing redefinition: the cru bottlings have been declassified into simple DOC Langhe to allow an addition of Barbera to Nebbiolo), there is now the Pieve di Santa Restituta estate in Tuscany’s Montalcino, producing two Brunellos, and the more recent Ca’ Marcanda in the Tuscan Maremma, next door to Ornellaia, Sassicaia and a couple of other aias. The two Tuscan estates share one characteristic with the Piedmont headquarters – exorbitant prices – and a similar scale, but the vinification appears to be a bit more modern.

This was surely evident in the three Ca’ Marcanda bottlings: rich, fat, dense, low-acid, lavishly oaked wines with a fair bit of sensual excitement, but ultimately a bit boring. Surely the Toscana IGT Promis 2006 (Merlot dominating, with the balance Syrah and Sangiovese) is excessively alcoholic, macerated-fruity and soft-tannic; defined as an ‘everyday wine’ of this estate, it is in fact too big for that. So how to rate such an anonymous but qualitative wine? On to Toscana IGT Magari 2006 (Cabernet Sauvignon and Franc supporting Merlot): still alcoholic but more driven and elegant than the Promis, with better balance. In short, less Merlotish (or Shirazish). Finish is really long, and while hardly very complex or individual this is really showing top-drawer winemaking and fruit quality. The estate’s flagship Bolgheri Ca’ Marcanda 2004 (similar blend) is dense, sweet, fleshy, but less atractively fresh than the above. Little evolution; a very big, very modern wine.

I was excited to try the Brunello di Montalcino Rennina 2004 and Brunello Sugarille 2004, my first taste of bottled Brunello from this outstanding vintage. But more patience will be required: they showed really tight. In general, the Rennina disappointed: no architectural interest, medium length at best, and not terribly Sangiovese-typical. The Sugarille was in another league, on the riper side of ripe but balanced, improving with airing, with a clean essential core of good cherry fruit. The style is very modern (you know it is when Sangiovese smells of menthol) but I can’t really criticise it too much. Price is the only issue.

Contrarily to past years, when we tasted the entire Gaja range including the white wines, only three bottles from Piedmont were opened. I can’t really be bothered with the Barolo Dagromis 2003, a blend of Serralunga and La Morra vineyards (akin to mixing milk chocolate with ice, perhaps), a moderately modern but carefully unacidic wine with a floral, sweet, cherryish nose and soft palate (perhaps forgivable for a 2003). It would be a good middle-of-the-road Barolo from an unknown producer but we can expect more from Gaja. And he surely delivers with the Barbaresco 2004. This is the most traditional wine here – still blended from the original 14 vineyards selected by Giovanni Gaja in the 1970s – and has consistently been the most interesting of the range in recent years, while the expensive crus here have been increasingly massaged to soft-tannic oblivion. A ‘real’ expression of Nebbiolo, peppery and sturdy, unsimplistic, not too fruity, not too modern, concentrated, with a good finish, a certain semi-traditional elegance and silky texture. Young of course, I have faith it should move into the ‘outstanding’ category with five years, or ten. Finally the Langhe Nebbiolo Sperss 2000. Technically a Barolo from Serralunga d’Alba vineyards, but declassified into Langhe DOC since 1997; 6% Barbera is currently blended in (‘for more fruit brilliance’, a Gaja manager once explained; as if Nebbiolo didn’t have enough). Unevolved in colour but slowly constructing a more aged bouquet with notes of raw and stewed meat, a certain sweet cherry elegance, and decent breadth; a nicely balanced, very pleasing glassful on the palate with quite some tannic reserve to improve further. But shows a certain limitedness of 2000: just a little muffled and unvivid.

This tasting was consistent with my other recent encounters with Gaja wines. At the entry level they can be quite simple and a little heavy (especially those from Bolgheri), while the upper bottlings are undoubtedly classy, with balance, structure and potential to age well. And clearly Gaja is no more in the vanguard of iconoclastic modernism in Piedmont; other producers have pushed the frontier quite a bit farther. In fact, compared to the hyperoaky roto-fermented (and at times concentrator-aided) ‘Nebbiolos’ from Elio A. or Gianni V., Gaja is now looking like an old Italian gentleman, perhaps driving a tad fast in his sports car.

So what is the problem? Prices. The above bottles combined would have settled you no less than 500€. Gaja’s blended Barbaresco is 70€ per bottle retail in Italy; crus are north from 150€. The ‘everyday’ Promis is 20+€. There are legion equally good Barbarescos at half the price. But then, of course, Gaja has become a ‘global brand’.

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Bricco Mondalino Grignolino 2008

Grey wine

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.

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Elvio Cogno Anas-cëtta 2007 and 2004

Shellfish in the Langhe

Continuing my thread on rare Piedmontese grapes, I opened a pair of interesting whites from this red-wine region.

Historically Piedmont has always produced white wine, and names such as Gavi, Arneis and Moscato d’Asti enjoy some international notoriety. However, in the Langhe, Piedmont’s central and most famous wine-producing zone, red wines such as Barolo and Barbaresco are so successful that very few producers are willing to waste vineyard land on white grapes. When they do, it’s the export-oriented Chardonnay that usually takes the upper hand.

The town of Novello seen from the Cogno winery balcony.
One town within the limits of DOCG Barolo has a white speciality, though. Novello, located at the south-western outskirts of the appellation, has grown the Nascetta grape variety for at least a century. Until 15 years ago, it was on the verge of extinction, with less than 10 hectares left. Fortunately, two estates decide to give it a chance. Le Strette’s Anascetta is made partly from 60-year-old vines and only sees stainless steel; the 2007 is a deeply coloured, very mineral, almost salty wine. Distinctive and delicious. There are only 2,000 bottles and the wine costs a mere 8€ in Piedmont.

A more ambitious version of the grape is made by the Novello estate of Elvio Cogno, which also produces some of my favourite Barolo (Ravera and Vigna Elena). Called Anas-cëtta for trademark reasons (in fact, this is the most accurate transliteration of the grape’s dialectal name), it comes from two contrasting vineyards and the grapes are picked in September. Fermented 30% in used oak, it sees no malolactic fermention to preserve the wine’s freshness. Valter Fissore of the Cogno winery is a great believer in the potential of Nascetta, and has gradually increased the production to the current 15,000 bottles. Apparently, other estates are following in his trail: the variety has been planted by Ettore Germano, Fontanafredda, and Sartirano. It can be hoped that Nascetta will survive.

Cogno’s Langhe Anas-cëtta 2007 is an excellent wine. Less coloured than in previous vintages, it shows very good control of winemaking. We get the typical bouquet of the variety: unfruity (a bit of apple perhaps), mineral, saline, almost maritime, there is also a whiff of oniony reduction, and citrus. Quite crisp, structured and powerful, completely oak-free, it is a very assertive wine with an engaging minerality and a core of juicy, crystalline green fruit. It is clearly hinting at the sea, and Valter says recent ampelographic studies have indicated a genetic relationship between Nascetta and Vermentino. Now wonder it screams for oysters or other shellfish.

Valter Fissore says his wine can age quite well, and judging by the structure of the 2007, I can agree. So I was delighted to spot a bottle of the 2004 at the excellent Enoteca Divinis in Bologna. Slightly yellow-coloured, this wine proved to be anything but mature. Not a very intense or distinctive nose, with a bit of apple and minerality, mild honey, and a ghost of varnishy oak in the background. Medium structure, some length. The most surprising thing is how unevolved this is, staying fresh and mineral, but it hasn’t built much complexity or breadth. Perhaps I expected more. But I think the 2006 and 2007 are far superior, and I will put some bottles in the cellar to taste in a few years’ time. By then I might have the largest vertical collection of Nascetta in the world!

Old and new in the cellar of Elvio Cogno.
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My first ever Quagliano



You are most likely familiar with Moscato d’Asti, that delightful frothy sweet 5%-alcohol speciality from Piedmont, probably the fruitiest and most refreshing ‘wine’ in the world. And you might even have heard about or tasted Brachetto, which is Moscato’s (far less widespread) red lookalike.

But Piedmont somehow specialises in such quirky wines. There is also the rare Malvasia di Castelnuovo Don Bosco and Malvasia di Casorzo d’Asti, both similar to Brachetto, as well as Freisa di Chieri, which is a little more ‘serious’ – deeper in colour and fizzy but often dry (or semi-dry).

Today I am drinking the rarest of all – Quagliano. This grape is only grown in an area north of the city of Cuneo, in a small DOC called Colline Saluzzesi, which wine-wise is in the middle of absolute nowhere. Quagliano, which is documented since the 17th century, is in the serious danger of extinction: there are only around 10 hectares left. The Colline Saluzzesi itself apparently is only 3.90 ha, and Quagliano needs to share these with another indigenous rarity, Pelaverga.

On a recent trip to Italy, I visited the Enoteca Regionale located at the imposing castle of Grinzane Cavour close to Alba. If you’re hunting after some barrique-aged Barbaresco you will find little of interest there, but it is a fantastic source of lesser-known Piedmontese wines. I ended up with bottles of Nascetta, Erbaluce, Ruché and Arneis, paying less than 50 € for 6 bottles. And then I grabbed this bottle of Quagliano – my first ever taste of this grape (and the first time I saw a bottle of it on sale).

Made by Ambrogio Chiotti (see their website here; interestingly, apart from bottled wines they also sell a 10-12% red in huge glass demi-johns; there is also a small museum dedicated to Quagliano), this wine packs in a bit more substance than Brachetto. It has a deeper purple colour, and shows a different aromatic register: bitter cherries instead of Brachetto’s raspberries and strawberries. Sweetness is moderate, and there is quite some cherry kick on the finish with a bit of tannins and good acidity. Not too frothy (juding from the bottling code I think this is a 2006, which would explain), but fresh as a springtime tulip. 7% alcohol and a lot of enjoyment. Let’s hope Quagliano can endure.

© S.

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