Recommendations for the unfamiliar

[CtznCane]

Andrea, thanks for sharing your time. As one who is not familiar with Itialian wines but who likes hearty Red wines, what would your recommendations be? What are the dominant grape types used in Piedmont's wines and their characteristics?

[Andrea Sottimano]

Piemonte is enormously rich of autochtones varieties:

-Arneis, a food-friendly white wine, produced on the "other side" of the River Tanaro, in the zone called Roero.Yellow-green in the colour, flowers, a pleasure, easy wine.

-Cortese, a medium bodied white; you will find it in the Gavi zone(south Piemonte),

or around there.

-Timorasso, an unknown white wine that the lovers of earthy,mineral,multi-layered and fashinating wines don't have absolutly to miss!Some great,great wines in this area(near Alessandria, always south of Piemonte), the first producer that came in my mind is Massa.

-Freisa, a fashinating red wine,lighter in colour or in aromas than a Barbera or Docetto, has a very intriguing nose of flowers, in the mouth there is an immense elegance.I love the Vajra Freisa, or, if you're lucky enough, an old Giacomo Conterno.....For the Pinot Noir lovers.It age very well, I've tried several 89 or 90, all good.

-Ruche', another elegant, ancient variety.Light-coloured, ethereal parfumes of roses, try the Scarpa's, also after some years.

I will continue....

[Andrea Sottimano]

-Dolcetto, the most food friendly, simply but at the same time rich and fruity, with some tannins that reminds you that we are in Piemonte....On a great pasta.

-Barbera, this wine is, now, unrecognizable for that ones that tasted it at the begin of 80's.It's a variety that produce normally very high yealds, that means high acidity and very low colour, not to mentione the lack of complexity.In the last 20 years, yealds are rapidly went down, more and more; now a Barbera from a good producer is a rich, with a wonderful fruit, complex wine, with that "fresh" touch at the end that makes it a perfect match with a lot piemontese dishes.

-Nebbiolo.Well, what to say ?A great "cepage", it has not a deep colour as the others, but, starting from the nose, you will fell its class: flowers in some zone, more fruity in others, licorice, mint, a multilayered parfume that change and evolve as the minutes go by; the mouth could be richer or less, elegant as the wines from La Morra or Neive or powerful and tannical as the wines from Barbaresco, Serralunga, MOnforte.

Every zone here has a different personality, it's you that you could find your favourite one!

Best, Andrea