Piedmont - An Italian Education

There’s more to Italian wine than the Super Tuscans, writes Robin Lynam, who focuses on the increasing popularity of Piedmont

“Each village has a style and an expression of Nebbiolo which, like Pinot Noir, is a pernickety grape, hates heat, prefers the morning sun, and produces its finest fruit on ancient Jurassic sea-beds rich in fossilized shellfish and limestone,” Berry Green observes.
Also as in Burgundy the best wines come from small estates and special individual parcels of land, and are made by families who in many cases have been involved with the region’s wines for generations.
Berry Green recently brought representatives of some of the houses with which the company has forged an alliance to Hong Kong, including Cantina Bartolo Mascarello, Chiara Boschis, Cascina Delle Rose, Cascina Fontana and Giovanni Rosso, with all of whom he has established relationships for BBR over the past three years.
Of the best known wines of the region, Barolo is a DOCG wine made 100 per cent from Nebbiolo and is generally agreed to be both its most powerful and most nuanced expression. Barbaresco, also a DOCG and produced in a nearby area of the Langhe, is likewise 100 per cent Nebbiolo and also enjoys a high if not quite so elevated reputation.
“There needs to be more education work done on the wines of Nebbiolo in terms of Langhe Nebbiolo and Nebbiolo d’Alba,” says Berry Green.
“Nebbiolo d’Alba is produced outside the Barolo and Barbaresco areas whereas Langhe Nebbiolo is effectively a second wine of Barolo and Barbaresco. Again these are two terms that are quite confusing with the trade as it stands.”
The thinking is that if people become familiar with the great wines of Piedmont by understanding the grape with which they are made, a more detailed knowledge of a complicated region will be easier to acquire.
As for Barbera, a well known grape which is also native to Piedmont, Berry Green is dismissive.
“Some would say that Barbera is a table grape. It hasn’t got the same distinction as Nebbiolo.”
 

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