Wine Book Review / North Adriatic: Three Countries, One Terroir

August 23, 2022 By Mike Veseth in book reviews, wine Leave a comment

Paul Balke, North Adriatic: Friuli Venezia Giulia – West Slovenia – Istria – Kvarner. Wine & Travel Atlas. Order the book via email: paulbarolo@gmail.com

Anyone who has seen Charles & Ray Eames’s famous 1977 video of “Powers of 10” (see below) understands that the way you see the world depends in part on how you choose to look at it.

In the video an everyday scene is examined first from steadily expanding scales (rising by a power of ten each ten seconds) and then deconstructed by repeatedly drilling down (by powers of ten again). Which view is correct? Why all of them, of course, it just depends on what you are looking for.

Bigger and Smaller

One view makes things seem bigger and the other makes them seem smaller (an Alice in Wonderland situation). It is important to keep perspective along the way.

The bigger/smaller problem applies to wine in many ways. Tasting notes, for example, have for a long time focused on breaking down wine flavors and aromas into their elements, like the second part of the Eames video, which is useful enough unless you are more interested, as many consumers may be, in how it makes you feel (a higher-level perspective). The whole, we hope, is greater than the sum of its parts, but that doesn’t always come through.

Here in the United States one trend has been to try to break the terroir of wine=-growing regions into smaller and smaller American Viticultural Areas as wineries and regions seek to communicate their distinctive features and to build solidarity among producers. But deconstructing terroir in this way is not the only story and sometimes not the best one.

Or at least that is Paul Balke’s argument in his colorful and informative book, North Adriatic, and he makes his case in a way that will remind you of the Eames film. First, he steps back repeatedly, probing what connects the people and territory of the North Adriatic, with chapters on the trans-national regional history, geography, climate, and gastronomy (this volume is meant to double as a travel guide, so food is never far from the surface!)

Central to this section of the book is Chapter 4, which is a very short essay on borders. Its purpose is to make you think about borders, fences and divisions in an age of globalization.

Down the Rabbit Hole

The book soon reverses course with very detailed chapters on the wine regions of the North Adriatic. Each chapter is an enticing rabbit hole (another Alice metaphor) full of photos, maps, facts, and analysis.

The wine regions are Colli Orientali, Collio and Brda, Isonzo, Grave, Aquileia, Karst, Vipava Valley, Istria, and Kvarner. There are also chapters on the many grape varieties and orange wines, which are very much a thing here. Wine is the focus here, but not just wine. Given the first part of the book, it is impossible to see wine without taking in elements of the broader context.

It is not a criticism to say that these chapters are so full of interesting images and ideas that it is possible to get lost. The images of chefs and their food made me hungry. Balke intends the book to be both a reference resource and a travel guide and I think he achieves his goal. I learned something new on each page.

What you won’t find here are detailed reviews of individual wines and profiles of specific wineries. That would require another book. This one is already bursting at the seams.

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Wine Book Review: Invisible Pignolo Revealed

June 8, 2021 By Mike Veseth in book reviews, Italian wine, wine, wine education, wine history Leave a comment

Ben Little, Pignolo: Cultivating the Invisible. 2021. Available exclusively from The Morning Claret Shop.

Pignolo: Cultivating the Invisible is quite a fantastic multi-media exploration of one of Italy’s (and the world’s) nearly forgotten grape varieties. My first impression of the book was fascination — so playful, so colorful. I just had to thumb through it to discover what was on the next page. Then there was puzzlement, because I would read short passages and it wasn’t really clear what was going on.

First fascination, then puzzlement, then — finally — enlightenment. Ok, that might be too strong, but I went back and read it from the start and it all made sense.

First comes the history of Pignolo in the context of the history of its native region, Friuli Venezia Giulia in Italy’s upper right-hand corner. A really interesting explanation of how Pignolo, wine, and the region evolved. Then the history shifts a bit to author Ben Little’s personal experience with Pignolo, which started only a few years ago (2016) but developed quickly and soon involved many others. There is much of a technical nature to learn through Little’s first person reports.

And then there are the lessons that Pignolo teaches us, inspirations, meditations, not sure what to call them. But by the time you get there you are ready to slow down, let the flow carry you, and absorb them, which might not have been the case at the start. Colorful graphics act as signposts along the way.

Little’s notion that Pignolo is an invisible grape variety works. It was always there all along, you just didn’t see it. That’s how it happened for him. At first he thought that there were just a few people in Friuli growing the grapes and making wine. But once word got out that there was interest, more and more plantings and producers began to appear until there were enough to fill a room (which Little did, with a little help from Pignolo’s friends).

Pignolo might be invisible to you, too. That’s how it was for us. Did we ever taste Pignolo during our trips to Friuli? I had to think and use the ample resources of Little’s big book. We might have tasted Pignolo when we visited the Cormons cooperative, but there were so many wines there it is hard to know. Possibly when we stayed at Il Roncal. Bastianich makes an IGT blend called Calabrone, which is includes a splash of Pignolo as a key ingredient. When we didn’t have time to taste it at the winery Wayne Young wrapped up a bottle for us to take home and I’m very glad he did. Amazing.

We staying in one of the rooms at Borgo San Daniele and I remember distinctly the tasting where Mauro Mauri poured his Arbis Ròs Pignolo from magnum. What an amazing wine. I tried to get him to sell me some bottles, but it was all gone. Only that magnum was left. And the memory, too.

Our final taste of Pignolo was at Paolo Rodaro and that’s when we met Ben Little. Little was nice enough to help with some difficult translations, but you could tell even then, not too long after his Pignolo journey had begun, that his focus was on the particular wine and Rodaro’s version was especially intense and interesting. There was another connection that I only learned about by reading this book — like me, Little is a recovering student of economics and can’t resist adding his insights to the blend.

Having read Little’s book, I want to go back to Friuli and visit the small region of Rosazzo, which seems to be Pignolo’s spiritual home. Pignolo was pretty much invisible to me a few days ago, now that I see that it has been there all along, I want to ask it a few questions.

In the meantime, I couldn’t resist trying to track down a bottle of Pignolo here in the U.S. and refresh my memory. I was able to find the 2005 La Viarte Pignolo Riserva at Kermit Lynch‘s online store. We pulled the cork and paired the wine with Caesar salad and a prime-grade dry-aged steak — clearly this was a special meal. The wine lived up to the occasion. The first glass was a bit wild, but it settled down and developed along several axes over the next two hours. Sue said that the wine really pulled itself together when the food arrived just as it was meant to do, I think.

Some wine experiences are delicious but not especially interesting — you know what you are getting. Others are interesting, but not necessary delicious — you are happy to stop after the first glass. The Pignolo was both, so it is easy to understand Little’s fascinating with it.

Pignolo: Cultivating the Invisible is a highly personal memoir of and tribute to a very distinctive grape and the people who have nurtured it as it nurtured them. More than a book, it is an experience. Highly Recommended.

Bolgheri and the Native vs Traditional Grape Variety Debate

October 17, 2023 By Mike Veseth in Italian wine, wine, wine history, wine markets 3 Comments

There are hundreds of native grape varietals around the world. Italy has enough for Ian D’Agata to fill two substantial volumes: Italy’s Native Wine Grape Terroirs and Native Wine Grapes of Italy. Sometimes I think you could spend a lifetime enjoying just Italy’s native grape wines and never reach the end of the list.

Native grape varieties are almost everywhere threatened by invaders. “International” grape varieties such as Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Sauvignon Blanc, are thought to be easier to sell than native varieties with unfamiliar names. We tend to side with the underdogs in this fight, favoring native varieties that might otherwise fade from the scene. What a loss!

But that doesn’t mean that native grapes are the end of the story. Even in Friuli, home to so many indigenous grapes, there is a third category that are often called “traditional” grape varieties, such as Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Franc, which make excellent and even distinctive wines and have been planted locally for decades. Not native, to be sure, but no longer foreign, either.

Should we favor the native grape varieties because many of them are found only in a single place? Or is that unfair to the traditional grape varieties, which may have been planted locally for generations?

(I think I remember reading that there are a few wine regions in Europe where French-American hybrid grapes, which were introduced more than 100 years ago during the Phylloxera plague, are considered part of the traditional wine culture.)

A Waste of Time?

The native versus traditional grape variety question flared up a few months ago when Sue and I met up with a press group near Lake Garda in Northern Italy. All was quiet when we visited Lugana DOC wineries. Their distinctive wines were all made from Turbiana, a local variant of the native Trebbiano grape. But then we stopped at a couple of wineries in the Garda DOC, where several traditional “international” grape varieties are approved, and things changed a bit.

“This is a waste of time,” a journalist from Northern Europe proclaimed as he stared into his glass, which contained a very nice Chardonnay. My readers don’t care about Italian Chardonnay, he said, they only want to know about what is unique to this place, the native grapes.

I didn’t think it was a waste of time because learning about nice wines is almost always a good thing, but I admit I sometimes fall into a less extreme variant of this point of view, favoring native over traditional or international much of the time. But his strong reaction made me think. The vines for this wine had been planted by the winemaker’s grandfather and had helped support three generations of his family. That seems pretty well rooted in terroir, don’t you think?

Bordeaux in Bolgheri

I am reconsidering this question right now because Sue and I have been sampling some red wines from Bolgheri. Bolgheri is located on the Tuscan coast in the under-appreciated Maremma region. The wines are the San Felice Bell’Aja Bolgheri Superiore and Podere Sapaio Volpolo Bolgheri. Coming from Tuscany, you would imagine red wines to be Sangiovese or even a “super Tuscan” Sangiovese blend. But the Bell’Aja is 95 percent Merlot and 5 percent Cabernet Sauvignon. The Volpolo is 70 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and 15 percent each Petit Verdot and Merlot.

The wines were very different from each other (just look at the blends!) but the threads that connected them were intensity and elegance from bright acidity. If you are not familiar with Bolgheri wines, these blends will come as a surprise. How did this happen? And what should we make of them? (I won’t ask what my European journalist friend would have said!)

Bordeaux grape varieties came to the Maremma region on the Tuscan coast in the 1930s, according to Joe Bastianich’s account in his book Grandi Vini. That was about the same time that the swamps and marshes thereabouts were drained to fight malaria. Marchese Mario Incisa della Rocchetta saw similarities with Graves in Bordeaux in terms of maritime climactic influence and rocky soil, so a small amount of Cabernet was planted. The wines were meant for family and friends only, but word spread about a unique wine from a vineyard called Sassicia.

The family finally offered a small amount of the wine for sale in 1968 and Sassicia proclaimed the first “Super Tuscan,” which took the world by storm, inspiring winemakers in Tuscany and beyond to both raise standards and experiment with exciting new blends.

What is Tradition?

Sassicia was designated a simple vino da tavola because no appellation existed in Maremma for a wine with Bordeaux grape varieties. Indeed, when a Bolgheri DOC was first established in 1983 it designated white and rosé wines only. Red wines remained vino da tavola until 1994 when the DOC was amended to accommodate the sort of wines that define it today.

Bolgheri and its Bordeaux-blend wines are famous today and the best of them are treasured and collected. I am not sure anyone would tell Bolgheri producers that it was a mistake to embrace Cabernet when the native Sangiovese was available.

Obviously, these wines don’t rely upon native grapes, but would you call Cabernet and Merlot “traditional” grape varieties here, or is it too soon? The first wines were planted about 90 years ago, the first commercial wines were made a little over 50 years ago, and a DOC was enacted for them less than 30 years ago. Italy is a land of long tradition. Bolgheri is young by comparison. Bolgheri’s timeline in this regard is more New World than Old World.

Perhaps, as Hobsbawm argued, tradition isn’t something that exists on its own. Maybe it is something we create to suit our needs.

Flashback: What’s Up with Italian Wine in the U.S. Market?

June 14, 2022 By Mike Veseth in Italian wine, wine, wine markets Leave a comment

Sue and I have just returned from a very quick trip to Italy to explore the wines of Abruzzo, a region that, as I wrote on this page a few weeks ago, doesn’t get the attention it deserves either in the wine world or more generally. This is changing and our multi-part report, which you will find here in a few weeks, will explain how and why.

In the meantime, here is an abridged “flashback” column from 2019 that examines some of the challenges and opportunities that the regional wines of Italy faced then and, to a considerable degree, face today.

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Wine Economist (November 19, 2019). Italian wine has a lot going for it in the U.S. market. Wines from Italy are by far the largest category of imported wines. Recent Nielsen figures (reported in Wine Business Monthly) show almost $1.2 billion in 52-week sales of Italian wines in the channels that Nielsen surveys — that is almost a third of all spending on wine imports and far more than #2 Australia ($720 million) and #3 New Zealand ($496 million). France is #4 at $462 million.

Italy has benefited from the hot market for sparkling wines in general and Prosecco in particular. …

It would be a mistake to take these advantages for granted and the Italians are working hard to consolidate their market base and move forward. Or at least that’s what we think after attending the Seattle stop on the “Simply Italian Great Wines US Tour 2019.” We spent the day attending seminars sponsored by the European Union and wine region groups and meeting producers (many of whom were seeking local distribution) at a walk-around tasting.

[Two favorites from the walk-around tasting were Societa Agricola Sturm from Collio — fantastic Ribolla Gialla — and Cannonau di Sardegna from Sardina’s Cantina Giampietro Puggioni.]

Out of the Shadow

The Seattle event reminded us of how much we love the wines of Italy. But it also highlighted some of the challenges that Italy faces.

Italy is a complex mosaic of wine regions, styles, and brands. Although an amazing array of Italian wines can be found in the U.S. market, there are a few names that dominate the conversation: Chianti, for example, and Prosecco. It is easy for other wines from other regions to be over-shadowed. Sue and I saw the shadow effect when we stopped at a nearby Total Wine, which has a big selection of Italian wines. We were looking for wines from Friuli and we found just a hand-full — mainly Pinot Grigio. The big regions crowd out the smaller ones on store shelves.

This is the challenge facing Vino Nobile di Montepulciano DOCG, for example. Vino Nobile is a small and distinctive appellation located about 65 km south-east of Siena. The four wines we tasted at the seminar were terrific and made me think about this region as a sort of Tuscan Stags Leap District — one of my favorite U.S. wine appellations.

But excellent wines are not necessarily enough when you need to compete with famous Chianti Classico. You need to get glasses in consumer hands and give the wine and region a distinct identity. Tourism (and not simply wine tourism) is one way to do this. Come for the history, food, and culture and learn about the wonderful wines. This seems to be part of Vino Nobile’s strategy to get out from under the shadow of its more famous neighbor and to tell a distinctive story about the region and the wines.

Italians love to drink sparkling wines and they make some terrific ones. And although my friends in Conegliano hate to hear me say it, it is a shame that the only Italian sparkler that most Americans can name is Prosecco.

I wish they’d give more attention to Francicorta DOCG, which faces a similar challenge to Vino Nobile. Franciacorta is often said to be the “Champagne” of Italy. It is made using the classic method from mainly but not exclusively the traditional Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes . The comparison to Champagne is understandable and the wines stand up well compared to their French cousins.

But it is not always helpful to think of Franciacorta this way because if you want Champagne you want Champagne and not necessarily something else. Franciacorta needs to more clearly develop a distinctly Italian identity that positions it apart from French wines and also Prosecco. The two Franciacorta DOCG wines were tasted were delicious — and I don’t think the skilled presenter ever called them Italy’s Champagne. I know producers are working hard to build their market category because the current interest in sparkling wines presents a great opportunity.

A Grape or a Region?

One of the sessions focused on DOC Pinot Grigo delle Venezie. Pinot Grigio is one of white wine’s big success stories in the U.S. market. Pinot Grigio/Pinot Gris is the second largest selling white wine category in the U.S. market, according to Nielsen figures, far behind #1 Chardonnay but well ahead of #3 Sauvignon Blanc.

Some of the Italians I have met like to imagine that all the Pinot Grigio sold in the U.S. comes from Italy — and Italy might have dominated this category a few years ago — but now Pinot Grigio is grown just about everywhere. I made risotto a few nights ago with a nice little Pinot Grigio from Washington state. That is the problem with the “signature wine grape variety” strategy. The category may start associated with a particular place, but often the place fades and it is just about the grape and then it is anyone’s game.

Italian producers hope to stake a territorial claim to the Pinot Grigio market with DOC Pinot Grigio delle Venezie — Pinot Grigio from a specific region subject to DOC rules and regulations. The consorzio logo above is meant to establish the identity. Italy first — can you miss the green-white-red stripes? And then Venice and Venezie as symbolized by the stylized prow of a Venetian gondola. Italy, Venice, Gondolas. Get it? That’s Pinot Grigio.

It is easy to be a little skeptical about the effort to re-brand Pinot Grigio this way since Americans generally know little about DOC and DOCG designations, but in this case there is reason for cautious optimism because many of the DOC Pinot Grigio wines have big marketing and distribution muscle behind them. The list of wines that were tasted in Seattle, for example, includes DOC wines from Lumina by Ruffino (Constellation Brands), Prophecy by Cantine di Mezzacorona (Gallo), Montresor (Total Wine & More), and Cupcake (The Wine Group).

Pinot Grigio won’t stop being a grape variety that could come from anywhere, but with some effort it can also be a regional wine of Italy once again.

Italian wine makers are luckier than most. They face challenges, some of which are the product of their own success, but there is a tremendous reservoir of good will and affection for Italy and its wines. The struggle for market attention is therefore not easy but still possible. The Seattle event has inspired us to look more closely at the Italian wine mosaic and to try to appreciate a bit more its many shapes, colors, and styles.

Memo to CNN: Searching for Italian Wine?

March 9, 2021 By Mike Veseth in Italian wine, popular culture, wine, wine tourism 12 Comments

Dear CNN,

Sue and I have been watching the CNN original series “Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy.” Tucci visits six Italian regions, talks with the people, enjoys the food, and tells some stories. Maybe it is because of the pandemic, but there is something very satisfying about following Tucci on his journey. You might want to check it out.

Tucci starts his Giro d’Italia in Naples and then moves on to Rome, Bologna, Milan, Tuscany, and Sicily. The title suggests that he is “Searching for Italy.” Will he find it? Not if he thinks that Italy is a single thing with a single cuisine, because that Italy has never existed. But if he is willing to accept that Italy is its regions — and I am sure he is — then he’ll be fine and so will we.

Searching for Italian Wine

The chapter on Italy in my book Around the World in Eighty Wines is a Tucci-esque search for Italian wine. My quest to find one wine that can represent all of Italy’s wines comes tantalizingly close to success at one point, but ultimately I realize that Italian wine is impossible. There are only the wines of Italy’s regions. No wonder the Italian wine map is perhaps the most complicated in the world.

So it seems to me that Searching for Italian Wine would make a great series for the same reasons that Tucci’s program is so popular. But what would a program about Italy’s wines be like? Walking though beautiful vineyards is great and makes good video, but you can only do that so often before it gets a bit old. Ditto for visiting cellars, inspecting barrels and tanks, and wondering at the majesty of shiny new pneumatic presses and speedy bottling lines.

Watching wine being made isn’t as interesting as watching food being made for some reason (perhaps because it takes so long) and in any case Tucci’s producers seem to realize that there’s a limit to how many times they can show onions being diced or pasta being rolled and cut. So instead they show the hustle and bustle of markets — that never gets old to me — and focus on real people, who they are, what they do, and how they define and are defined by the local products and food. That’s a model that works every time, if you don’t lose sight of your goal.

Searching for Italy and Its Wines

This leads me to my main point, which is that Tucci’s Searching for Italy could be the perfect Italian wine show if it just brought wine more fully into the frame (note: I write this before the Tuscany episode has been aired). Wine shows up all the time in Searching for Italy, but it is just something the people drink with the food, never an important element of the story. Wine in Italy is so much more.

The Bologna episode is a case in point. Yes, the Prosciutto, Mortadella, and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese are amazing. We were fortunate to enjoy them almost every day when I taught at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Bologna Center a few years ago. Our apartment was on a little alley called Via Pescherie Vecchie in the heart of the heart of the famous central market area. It is an inescapable element of the city’s life so naturally it was on Tucci’s Bologna itinerary. Here’s a video of a visit to this street to give you a sense of the place.

So what do you drink with these intensely local products? Well, wine of course, but there is a particular local wine that we think is magical. It is called Pignoletto and it is so local that I doubt you will easily find it anywhere else. As I wrote ten years ago after a return visit to our old neighborhood …

Pignoletto is a dry white wine grown only in the hills outside of Bologna. “Lively, crisp, aromatic” is how Jancis Robinson describes it in her Guide to Wine Grapes. Pignoletto is distinctly Bolognese — grown there, made there and I think that every last drop of it is consumed there, too, since it goes so well with the rich local cuisine (almost as if they evolved together … which I guess they did). It would be hard to beat the simple meal of salumi, cheese and bread that we had with a bottle of Pignoletto frizzante at Tamburini‘s wine bar in the Bologna central market.

The food and this wine evolved together in Bologna. No wonder they are such a perfect match. And they say something about the importance of place in a footloose world, don’t you think? It would have been easy to include this wine (and some others, too) in the Bologna episode, CNN, and your viewers would have thanked you for opening this door to Italian wine, food, and culture.

Dear CNN: Who Ya Gonna Call?

So, CNN, you are probably wondering who can help you take Searching for Italy to the next level by adding the magic of wine to the mix? Well, our team here at The Wine Economist stands ready to lend a hand (and pull a few corks) and we have no end of ideas for season 2 in the Veneto, Friuli, Alto Adige, Piemonte, Liguria, Sardinia — and that’s just getting started! Let’s take that Italian map and search for Italy and Italian wine in every corner.

Italy is a mosaic of people, places, wine, food … and wine, too. Let’s work together to tell the story of Italian wine in context, one beautiful region at a time.

Sincerely,

The Wine Economist team

Rediscovering Ruchè, One of Italy’s “Invisible” Wines

June 23, 2020 By Mike Veseth in Uncategorized 4 Comments

ruche The coronavirus pandemic has paused The Wine Economist’s usual travel and speaking schedule and while I don’t miss the chaos of international air travel I do miss the opportunity to meet interesting new people and the chance to discover wines made from indigenous grape varieties that often don’t get the attention they deserve.

At this time last year, for example, we were visiting Sardinia and Friuli, two regions of Italy that are especially known for their indigenous wine grapes. Some of these wines are pretty readily available here in the U.S. — Cannonou di Sardegna is a good example. You can find good examples if you look around at bit. But others are much too local to get much outside distribution — you sometimes need to go to the source to try them. Vermentino di Gallura and Carignano del Sulcis are examples, also from Sardinia, of wonderful wines that you may not easily find.

Discovering Invisible Wines

These intensely local wines are a special treat and I wrote about them in a chapter called “Invisible Wines” in my book Extreme Wine. I cited three wines from Italy — Pignoletto from the vineyards around Bologna, Lacrima di Morro d”Alba from Marche, and Ruchè di Castagnolo Monferrato in Piemonte.

As I wrote on The Wine Economist in 2011, we discovered Ruchè (prndounced ROO-kay) by accident. We were attending the annual regional culinary fair in Moncalvo, a hill town half an hour north of Asti. Thirteen “pro loco” civic groups from throughout the region set up food and wine booths in the central square and sold their distinctly local wares to an enthusiastic luncheon crowd. As I reported then,

“I had never heard of Ruchè and honestly didn’t know what it might be until I happened upon the stand of the Castagnole Monferrato group. They were cooking with Ruchè , marinating fruit in Ruchè and selling it by the glass — they were obviously very proud of their local wine. I had to try it and it was great. Suddenly I saw Ruchè everywhere (a common experience with a new discovery) and enjoyed a bottle at dinner in Asti that night. “Like Nebbiolo,” Jancis Robinson writes, “the wine is headily scented and its tannins imbue it with an almost bitter aftertaste.”

Tenuta Montemagno

Sue and I were excited to re-live our Ruchè discovery when we were contacted by Tenuta Montemagno and offered the opportunity to taste their two Ruchè wines, Nobilis and Invictus. Sue prepared a special meal (see note below) and we pulled the corks. The Nobilis brought back many memories. A juicy, light bodied red wine, it had the distinctive aroma of roses and the mix of red fruit and warm spices on the palate. It was great with Sue’s signature veal meatballs.

And then came Invictus, made from riper grapes, vinified dry (2g/l compared to 1 g/l for Nobilis) with a bit more alcohol (15.5% versus 15%). A fuller wine, Invictus is what I call a philosopher’s wine — something you might want to sit with for a while so you can appreciate how it develops in the glass. Recognizably Ruchè, but a different experience. Fascinating. Memorable.

No one comes to The Wine Economist for tasting notes, but here is a video note that captures some of what we found special about these wines. Watch closely and you will see that this seasoned reviewer is surprised (at one point nearly at a loss for words) at what’s in his glass and is keen to learn more. That’s Ruchè.

Tenuta Montemagno is devoted to the tradition of these wines in addition to their Grignolino, Barbera D’Asti, and Barolo reds. The white wines include Sauvignon and Timorasso, another indigenous grape variety that I need to learn more about the next time we are in the neighborhood. But maybe I won’t have to wait that long. The winery is working to get its products into wider distribution in the U.S. market and I hope they succeed so that more people can discover their “invisible wine.”

The Priest Did It

Today Ruchè is nearly invisible — you won’t find it unless you make an effort. But it could have been much worse. Like some other indigenous varieties, Ruchè fell from favor and was on the road to commercial extinction. It was saved starting in the 1960s by one man: the parish priest.

As Ian D’Agata explains in the chapter on Ruchè in his recent book Italy’s Native Wine Grape Terroirs, Don Giacomo Cauda, Castagnole Monferato’s town priest, was obsessed with Ruchè, studied it, collected specimens from scattered small plots, and promoted Ruchè as the region’s signature wine. Ruchè di Castagnole Monferrato received DOC recognition in 1987 and was elevated to DOCG in 2010, putting it up among the elite of the Italian wine world. A long climb from near-extinction to the summit in just 50 years.

The Oxford Companion to Wine reports that there were about 100 hectares (247 acres) of Ruchè in all of Italy in 2010. Not a lot, but a viable amount that I hope will grow. Now the challenge is to assure the economic success of Ruchè and invisible wines like it, which is why I encourage you to seek them out, both at home and when you (eventually) travel. You will enjoy the experience, of course, and help support local wines.

Thanks to Tenuta Montemagno for providing Nobilis and Invictus for us to taste for this column. I hope Sue and I can visit you in person once the pandemic crisis has passed.

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These wines really want to be paired with food and so Sue made one of my favorite dishes which, although it comes from a different region of Italy, proved to be an excellent match. A few years ago we spent an entire day cooking and eating with Bologna’s famous Simili sisters (see this New York Times article by William Grimes about these celebrated chefs). They had closed their cooking school and were experimenting with personal classes in their apartment. Try the Tenuta Montemagno wines with the Simili sisters’ veal meatballs in Port sauce.

Wine Book Review: Ian D’Agata on Italy’s Native Wine Grape Terroirs

August 6, 2019 By Mike Veseth in book reviews, Italian wine, wine 2 Comments

Ian D’Agata, Italy’s Native Wine Grape Terroirs. University of California Press, 2019. dagata

Italy’s Native Wine Grape Terroirs is Ian D’Agata’s sequel to his fascinating 2014 book on the Native Wine Grapes of Italy. (Here’s a link to that book’s Wine Economist review).

D’Agata’s 2014 book was all about balancing breadth and depth by … providing both. He wanted to tell you as much as possible about as many of Italy’s native grape varieties as he could. This is an almost impossible task because of Italy’s vast wealth of indigenous grapes, but he pulled it off. What knowledge! That book sits on my bookshelf in a place of honor.

Aglianico to Zibibbo

Italy’s Native Wine Grape Terroirs takes the next logical step and will appeal to readers like me who enjoy a deep dive into the world of Italian wine. The most important native Italian wine grapes from A (Aglianico) to Z (Zibibbo, better known as Moscato di Alessandria) and their regional and local terroirs are analyzed in detail.

Some grapes get a lot of space (Sangiovese of course) and others only a couple of pages (Pecoriino), but the entries are uniformly readable, informative, and interesting. I learned something new on every page.

Understanding Vermentino

Sue and I recently visited Sardinia and Friuli and I wish this book had been available to help us prepare. The entry on Vermentino tells me all about the grape, of course, and about the important differences in terroir between the Vermentino di Sardinia and Vermentino di Gallura.

Then D’Agata dives deeper, explaining why a few extra days on the vine makes a big difference in the character of the Gallura wines. We tasted the difference when we visited Vigne Surrau in May and now I understand where it came from and can appreciate better its importance. It’s a detail that increases understanding and makes a difference.

There are no real tasting notes here, but each chapter includes a short list of “Benchmark Wines” that would be a great checklist for anyone studying a particular region and its wines or to add to a serious wine tourist’s agenda.

Friuli U-Turn

I was particularly interested in the entries for Friulian native wine grapes. These wines are favorites of ours because they are so delicious and distinctive. We have just returned from this region, but now I want to turn around and go right back because D’Agata has given me so many more questions to examine, nuances to explore, and wines to taste.

D’Agata helps me appreciate that the Italian north-east is a treasure house of native wine grapes and wonderful wines. It is a region that deserves more attention that it currently gets. D’Agata is clearly enthusiastic about this region, too. It is his terroir — the area where he spent summers growing up and to which he returns frequently.

Bravo. But …

I am grateful to the University of California Press for making these books available. Wine book publishing (along with print publishing more generally) is not especially a growth industry — a fact that my wine writer friends sadly note. Opportunities to publish fine books like this one are not abundant and UC Press has done a good job here. Bravo! And thanks.

But … while I appreciate that UC Press is keeping the lights on and making fine works like D’Agata’s books available, I wish they’d find a way to price them more like trade books than academic books, so that they can reach a wider audience.

Highly recommended.

Rediscovering Collio’s Iconic White Wines

July 9, 2019 By Mike Veseth in Italian wine, wine, wine markets 1 Comment

Collio, the beautiful wine region in Italy’s upper right-hand corner near Slovenia, along with its neighbor Colli Orientali del Friuli, is one of our favorite places to visit and makes some of our favorite wines, too. We’ve been there three times and each visit has revealed something new.

Flashback to 2000

We were lucky on our first visit in 2000 because we stayed at Venica & Venica, a top producer that was just getting started developing its hospitality program. We happened to arrive on Cantine Aperte day when all the wineries in the region were open and welcoming guests. Ornella Venica gave us the key to our room and handed us a map. Get going, she said, You have a lot of work to do today! And so we did. What fun.

A few days later we moved to a rustic cabin at the Sirk family’s La Subida. The cabin was great because we could eat at the famous restaurant when we wanted to but also use our little kitchen to create our own meals. This gave us the chance we were looking for to explore the markets and try even more local delicacies.

The wines we found were a revelation — mainly white wines with a few reds (notably Merlot) mixed in. We were especially drawn to Sauvignon (as they call Sauvignon Blanc here), which had a fascinating brightness and precision. We found ourselves on a beautiful island of great white wines in what seemed like a vast sea of Italian reds.

Fast Forward to 2015

Somehow it took 15 years for us to return to this part of Italy, but we finally found an opportunity when I was invited to give some talks at the Conegliano wine school in 2015. This time we stayed at BorgoSanDaniele in Cormons and then, at the urging of friends, at Il Roncal in Cividale del Friuli. It was not Cantine Aperte day, alas, but we visited a number of memorable wineries, which I wrote about in articles for The Wine Economist.

A lot had changed in 15 years. Revisiting Venica & Venica we discovered a much expanded winery and an ambitious winery resort hospitality complex. The region was growing into its potential as a wine tourism destination. We tasted more sparkling wines than on our first visit, a reaction to the changing market conditions created by Prosecco’s success. And we encountered more (and I think better) red wines. Climate change at work, we were told.

We still loved the Sauvignon wines (including one from Tiare that had recently been named the best such wine in the world), but this time we were drawn to the native grape varieties, especially Ribolla Gialla, Malvasia, and Tocai Friulano among the white wines and the various varieties of Refosco among the reds.

Enjoy Collio Experience 2019

We vowed not to let so much time pass between visits to this region, so we were delighted to receive an invitation to participate in the Consorzio Collio’s Enjoy Collio Experience 2019. We took part in the activities of a press and trade tour and I spoke briefly for a roundtable discussion on sustainability.

We stayed at the elegant Castello di Spessa, which includes vineyards, winery, golf course, restaurants, rooms, and of course a castle all just a few minutes from Cormons. Giacomo Casanova lived here at one point and his name and image are everywhere.

The focus of this event was clearly on Collio, so we were able to explore its special terroir in more depth (see Stephen Quinn‘s excellent video above) and get to know the wines and winemakers at blind tastings led by Richard Baudins and through winery visits, dinners, and other events.

What stood out in these experiences? Well, we were attracted to certain producers we didn’t know before including Primosic, Gradis’ciutta, Livon, Bracco, and Ronco Blanchis. (A tasting of 12 vintages of Friulano at Ronco Blanchis, which has a very special terroir, was memorable.) And we had an opportunity to learn much more about the region’s designated white wine ambassador, which is called Collio Bianco.

Once upon a time Collio Bianco was a simple field blend, but then it evolved into a sort of kitchen sink wine. Winemakers took their native white wine leftovers and mixed them up. I am not sure it was a really bad wine, but it didn’t represent the best that could be done.

Starting in the 1990s, however, there has been a determined effort to remake Collio Bianco into the region’s flagship wine. Winemakers were given more freedom to blend their best grapes in order to produce distinctive white wines that are brilliant when young and have the potential to evolve over time.

The Collio producers are so proud of their Collio Bianco that we devoted one complete morning to blind-tasting 24 of the wines from different producers in different parts of the region, made with different combinations of native and international varieties, and from a number of different vintage years.

How were the wines? And why is Collio Bianco important to the region’s future? Good questions! Come back next week for analysis.

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Video credit: Magic soils of Collio from Stephen Quinn on Vimeo.

Many thanks to the Consorzio Collio for inviting us to participate in Enjoy Collio Experience 2019. Special thanks to Klementina Koren and Matteo Bellotto for their help and hospitality. Cheers to all the Collio winemakers and international journalists we met along the wine road. We hope to see you again!

What’s Up with Italian Wine in the U.S. Market?

November 19, 2019 By Mike Veseth in Italian wine, wine, wine exports 2 Comments

doc Italian wine has a lot going for it in the U.S. market. Wines from Italy are by far the largest category of imported wines. Recent Nielsen figures (reported in Wine Business Monthly) show almost $1.2 billion in 52-week sales of Italian wines in the channels that Nielsen surveys — that is almost a third of all spending on wine imports and far more than #2 Australia ($720 million) and #3 New Zealand ($496 million). France is #4 at $462 million.

Tariffs? Que Bello? Pazzo!

Italy has benefited from the hot market for sparkling wines in general and Prosecco in particular. And it gained an unexpected advantage over its European neighbors due to the peculiarities of the recently-imposed U.S. tariffs on European wines. Imports of many wines from France, Germany, Spain, and the U.K. are subject to a 25% tax. What’s the tax on Italian wine imports? Zero. Zippo. Niente. Que bello!

(See Suzanne Mustacich’s excellent Wine Spectator article on the wine trade war for more details.)

How did Italy dodge the tariff bullet? I don’t think there is an official explanation or obvious economic rationale. Pazzo! Must be politics, don’t you think? Maybe it has something to do with the high-level Trump administration officials with Italian-sounding names? Or maybe Italy’s not so closely associated with subsidies to Airbus, which provoked the WTO rulings and subsequent tariffs. Strange, but good for Italian producers trying to get their foot in the U.S. door (or working to open the door a little wider).

[Two favorites from the walk-around tasting were Societa Agricola Sturm from Collio — fantastic Ribolla Gialla — and Cannonau di Sardegna from Sardina’s Cantina Giampietro Puggioni.]

Out of the Shadow

The Seattle event reminded us of how much we love the wines of Italy. But it also highlighted some of the challenges that Italy faces.

A Grape or a Region?

Pinot Grigio won’t stop being a grape variety that could come from anywhere, but with some effort it can also be a regional wine of Italy once again.

The Trouble with Being King of the Hill

July 16, 2019 By Mike Veseth in Italian wine, wine, wine history, wine tourism 4 Comments

mappa-collio

For a long time Collio and its neighboring regions in Italy’s upper right-hand corner have been King of the Hill when it comes to Italian white wines. It started in the 1960s when Collio, which had long been known for its excellent hillside terroir, abolished the old share cropping system, which favored quantity over quality, and got a head start on many competitors in the adoption of modern temperature-controlled white wine fermentation practices.

Exceptional grapes were combined with winemaking techniques that preserved fruit and aromas. The results were some stunning mono-variety white wines — Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, and native varieties, too — that established the region’s reputation.

The Trouble with Hills

As I noted last week, Sue and I have been coming to Collio since 2000 and the wines have gotten more and more interesting — strength built on strength. But the trouble with being King of the Hill is that you must constantly defend your position against determined competitors and this has been Collio’s challenge.

Collio’s distinctive terroir is impossible to copy, but other wine regions have worked hard to reel in Collio’s early lead in vineyard and cellar practices. Now there are excellent white wines from many regions of Italy north, south, east, and west. Some of the Vermentino di Gallura wines we tasted recently in Sardinia, for example, were absolutely world class.

And of course there are competitors from all over the world to be considered starting of course with New Zealand, which was only a fly speck on the world wine map back in the 1960s. There is a lot of competition today for the title of King of the White Wine Hill.

Grape Expectations

Collio’s challenge is ironically made more difficult today because of its focus on mono-variety wines. Pinot Grigio was easy to understand in the early days compared with wines identified by appellation. That was an advantage. But today there are Pinot Grigio (and Sauvignon and Chardonnay) wines from all over the world and the Collio brand is perhaps overshadowed in New World consumer minds, which often focus on grape variety more than region.

The focus on grape variety unexpectedly puts Collio in directly competition with New Zealand, California, Australia, France, and a host of other regions. The advantage of a hilltop position is diminished. The fact that Friulano, the region’s signature native wine grape, has been serially rebranded (Tocai, Tocai Friulano, Friulano) under orders from the intellectual property police hasn’t helped.

So Collio is facing increased competition from other parts of Italy and other parts of the world. There is also more competition within Friuli itself. We heard reports of massive new plantings out on the plains that threaten to flood the market with cheaper wines and drive down precious margins. They won’t be Collio appellation wines, but they will still compete. Yikes!

Collio Bottleneck

There are as many responses to the the increased competition as their are growers and producers. One important initiative is Collio Bianco, a signature white wine blend that producers hope can help establish the region’s brand more concretely in consumers minds. Think Collio (not just the grape varieties) for exceptional white wines .

bianco

The official definition of Collio Bianco has evolved. Once this wine was a simple field blend. Then it because a loosely regulated blend of native grape varieties that was noteworthy for its lack of distinctiveness. Kitchen sink wine, made with leftovers not used in the favored varietal bottlings.

More recently Collio Bianco was been defined as a white blend made from just about any mixture of native and international grape varieties. The idea is to give winemakers freedom to make the very best wines and have them bear the Collio label and fly the region’s flag.

A special bottle shape was created to further distinguish this wine from others on the shelf. What do you think? The longer, thinner neck requires a special cork. Choosing this bottle (it is a voluntary program and the special bottle is not required) is a commitment to promoting the region’s brand as well as the individual producers’ products.

One Blend to Rule Them All?

Our hosts arranged for our press group to taste 24 examples of Collio Bianco. Vintages ranged from a 2013 (Primosic Klin — it was spectacular) to several 2018s (bottled earlier than usual especially for Vinitaly and maybe not at their very best when we tasted them).

Some of the blends focused on the native grape varieties. Gradis’ciutta, for example, presented a Friulano, Malvasia, Ribolla Gialla blend. Others producers combined native and international grapes. Venica & Venica’s Tre Vigne blended Friulano, Chardonnay, and Sauvignon. Ronco Blanchis blended Friulano, Malvasia, Sauvignon, and Chardonnay. Marco Felluga’s Molamatta combined Friulano, Pinot Bianco, and Ribolla Gialla. It was, as you might guess, a pretty interesting experience, especially since we tasted the wines blind.

The Weight

The question now is what is Collio Bianco and can it bear the weight of expectations? The wines we tasted showed high quality but, given that they come from different producers, sub-regions, and vintages using different grape combinations, we struggled to find any other defining characteristic. And I guess that was the point of the exercise. Only after the fact did I realize why the tasting was titled “Characterized by not being characterized.”

So Collio Bianco wines have quality and they are diverse. Each is a bit different from the rest and consumer experimentation is richly rewarded. This is surely something, especially since the wines from some other regions sometimes seem to all taste alike. But is it enough? I’m not sure.

The good news is that many Collio producers recognize that the challenge of being King of the Hill and they have determined that quality and distinctiveness is the right response. The region also benefits from a consorzio organization with strong leadership and, just as important, pretty good follower-ship — not something that we always find. The greatest mistake would be to rest on past accomplishments, ignoring the competition’s gains, or to think in terms of quantity instead of quality. That’s the fast track from the top of the hill to the bottom.