Uncorked › Piedmont
A manga field guide to Piedmont.
Fog, truffles and Nebbiolo. Piedmont is where Italy makes its most argued over red wines, and where a stubborn marchesa, a thirsty king and a chainsaw changed how they taste. These five volumes take you from the big map to the single vineyards of Barolo and Barbaresco, then out to Asti, Gavi and the old volcano country of the north.
The big picture.
The top left corner of Italy in one sitting. Why the labels say place and grape at once, the three red grapes and what each one does, the marchesa and the king who made Barolo, Turin inventing the aperitivo, and how to read the hills. Ends, as Piedmont should, at the table with truffles and hazelnuts.
The king of wines.
One grape, eleven communes, a civil war fought with barrels. The Tortonian and Serravallian soils that split the zone in two, Renato Ratti's map, the 181 named vineyards and how to decode them, then the villages one by one and the traditionalists and modernists who still shape every bottle.
The queen.
Barolo's neighbour and rival, softer on paper and just as serious in the glass. The professor who bottled it first, the priest who saved it with a co-op, the terroir that makes it ready sooner, the rebel who put a barrique in the cellar and a Cabernet in the vineyard, and the three villages and their crus.
The insider map.
Everything around Barolo and Barbaresco that locals drink on a Tuesday. The Nebbiolo ladder from Langhe to Barolo, Roero's sand and its white grape Arneis, Dolcetto's home towns, Barbera and the oddballs, the new whites, Alta Langa sparkling, and Alba itself with its truffles and its 23 days of freedom.
Asti, Gavi and Alto Piemonte.
Four volumes on the Langhe covered about a quarter of Piedmont's vines. This one does the rest: the Barbera heartland of Asti and Nizza, Moscato's cathedrals under Canelli, the oddball reds, Gavi and the Timorasso revival, and the volcanic north where Nebbiolo goes by the name Spanna and a handful of growers brought a lost region back.