What do you know about Piedmont Wines

What do you know about Piedmont Wines

By Sebastiano Ramello and Alfredo de la Casa

Sebastiano Ramello is a wine expert and passionate wine, food and travel writer, representative of the Promoting wine-food  Association "PIEMONTE SWEET HOME" who visited Vietnam recently, and with who I have the opportunity to meet three times to discuss about wine, food, and life. His knowledge about Italian wines, especially from Pidmont region is vast, and wants to share it with wineinvietnam.com readers:

Piedmont (PIEMONTE) region is one the most important regions in Italy and in the world for the production of high quality wines, most of the doc and docg wines from Italy came from Piedmont (Doc and Docg denominations are issued and controlled by the Italian Government to ensure the origin territorial and originality of the wines, the wines DOCG or DOC can not be produced outside of their territories).

Piedmont region is the biggest territory in the world for the production of native wines, the most important wines from this region are made 100% with single grape, for example: Nebbiolo D'Alba, Barolo, Barbaresco, Roero, Gattinara, Ghemme are produced with 100% Nebbiolo grapes although Sangiovese is the most important grape in Italy, Barbera D'Alba and Barbera D'Asti with 100% Barbera grapes; Dolcetto di Diano D'Alba, Dolcetto D'Alba, Langhe Dolcetto, Dolcetto di Dogliani D'Olcetto D'Ovada are product 100% with Dolcetto grapes and so on....

The most important wine territories in Piedmont are 3, two of which are located in the province of Cuneo: Langa and Roero and the third in the province of Asti: Monferrato. This three territories produce the most important wines from the region and few most important wines from Italy as Barolo, Barbaresco and Roero. The first two wines Barolo and Barbaresco  by law can only be produced in certain municipalities of the territory of Langa near Alba city the famous town from where came the most prestigious white truffle in the world.

Barolo docg is the most prestigious wine from Italy, this wine is easy to be recognized for its orange colour with garnet tones, which becomes more and more clear with aging, a wine persistent with a great body, strong acidity and tannins that allow a life of up to 30 years or more; hint of spice on the palate, purple, ripe red fruit, sometimes simple dark chocolate, coffee, leather and mint, perfect to match with red meats, game dishes and aged cheeses. In Italy Barolo is also called the King of Italian wines for 2 reasons, one because it is the most important wine of Italy and the second because it was wanted and discovered by the Italian Royal Family which had its headquarters in Piedmont in the city of Torino.

Vintages of the past 10 years that I recommend the most are: 2009; 2007; 2006; 2004; 2001

Another important wine area a few kilometres away  from "Langa", on the other side of the river Tanaro, is the Roero. The vineyards of this region as the Langhe and Monferrato grow on hills about 300, 400 meters above sea level. Roero consists of sand and limestone soils, for this reason, its wines have important minerality, strong fruit lighter tannins compared to the wines of the Langa. Here also dozens and dozens of wineries, among them those that deserve special attention for their quality are the winery "Palazzo Rosso" buy by the Giachino family in the 1800s from the Italian Royal Family, and among his wines the most important for its high quality are: Roero Arneis Sparkling wine 2004 (only 5000 bottles production, Only Palazzo Rosso winery has this wines, this mean that there are only 5000 bottles in the world Roero Arneis 2004); Nebbiolo D'Alba doc 2010, and the unique Nebbiolo D'Alba doc 1997 left to stand for 13 years.

Roero docg red wine part of the same family of Barolo and Barbaresco, made with 100% Nebbiolo grapes, by law must be storage at least 2 years before being sold and at least 6 months in large oak barrels, a wine fruity, with hints of ripe fruit, spices, tannins slightly softer than a Barolo or Barbaresco, pronounced minerality, good acidity that give it a long life even with 8,10 years old. Perfect paired with aged cheeses, red meat, game, duck.

The last important wine territory in Piedmont region is MONFERRATO, that unlike the previous two, the vineyards are often interspersed with forests and plantations hazelnuts. This is the territory from where came one the most important sweet sparkling wine in the world: Moscato D'Asti docg, a wine with only 5,5% alcohol fantastic served chilled and paired with a dessert; Barbera D'Asti docg a red wine made 100% with Barbera grape, fruity by high acidity, persistent in palate. In Monferrato definitely goes above the winery "BOERI" a small family wine producer, total production 100.000 bottles at year, conducted by two brothers, that produce Moscato D'Asti docg which is very pleasant.

Each one of these 3 territories has micro areas of production where every denomination takes its own character and its flavours that make each winery unique.

Sebastiano works with his company "PIEMONTE WINE FOOD" as International Italian wine Consultant, he also writes for various wine and food magazines in Italy and Hong Kong as: VINO & DINTORNI and YUMMe.