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Go to your preferred wine guide/encyclopedia/atlas and turn to page (more likely a short paragraph) dedicated to Dolcetto. It is highly likely you will read some variation on the following theme:

“don’t be put off by the name, although Dolcetto translates to ‘little sweet one’ (how cute), it’s wines are fermented dry and never sweet”

An interesting story…

Does it make sense that a Piemontese grape variety first attested to in the 16th century would have an Italian name; a name in a language only widespread in the region from the late 19th century?

No.

Does it make sense that a grape that has no historical evidence1 of being vinified as a sweet wine would take its name from its sweetness?

Also no.

And yet Jancis Robinson MW (and Julia Harding), Nicolas Belfrage MW, Wine Folly, Wine Enthusiast and at least 5 other articles I found on substack all fall foul of the same mistake.

For those who aren’t familiar, in Piemonte there exists a triptych of grape varieties that maintain dominance over all the others.

Nebbiolo is the kind of absolute monarch of the three. Primarily known for its star role in classics such as The road to Barolo and Citizen Barbaresco. Highest in tannin of the three, highest in acidity of the three and comfortably the most prestigious. “Tar and violets/roses” seems to be a collectively agreed upon as the general tasting note for Nebb, irrespective of how accurate this might actually be.

Next comes the President character: Barbera (all anthropomorphisms beyond this point are purely my own). High acidity, low tannins, slightly darker colour than Nebbiolo. Despite having “let the side down” in the 1980s when people added methanol (poison) to meet demand for a booming Italian wine market, it has firmly returned to prominence in the hands of several passionate and skilful producers.

Then we have the lowly alderman2 of the three, the ‘wine of the people’: Dolcetto. High (ish) in tannin, lower in acidity and more or less the same tint as Barbera. A lot of Nebbiolo is sold abroad but what you are most likely to find at Piemontese lunch and dinner tables is a bottle of Dolcetto. Maligned internationally, seldom respected or given its due diligence. Really its the bangers and mash of Piemontese wine but that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t know about the virtues of other worldly bangers with stupendous mash.

Its time to sing the praises of Dolcetto.

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Let’s start with getting the name right:

Dolcetto does not come from Dolce (sweet) + -etto (small) but instead comes from the Piemontese word düsset or dösset - the “hump” (dosso in Italian) of the tops of the hills of the Langhe (Langhe being another local term for hills).

Dolcetto, being the earliest ripening of its accomplices, Nebbiolo and Barbera, is well suited to the highest part, the hump, of the hill where the colder conditions would push the likes of Nebbiolo to the point where it might never ripen at all.

Much like Nebbiolo growing in la nebbia, the fog, (la nebia in Piemontese) it makes sense that Dolcetto would also take its name from where it grows: it is l’uva del dösset or the grape of the hump of the hill and thus becomes cognate in Italian as Dolcetto

Even Ian D’Agata, the detective hero of Italian wine, writes in his book Native Grapes of Italy:

Dolcetto (from dolce or douce, sweet, in reference to the sweet grapes, not the wine).

Another problem with this theory is the fact that all grapes are fruits and therefore are sweet. Naming a wine after the grape’s sweetness would justify calling literally every single grape variety Dolcetto.

I’ll admit that I’ve never tried a fresh Dolcetto grape. Neither have I tried Barbera or Nebbiolo straight from the vine but even by Ian’s own admission:

The fully ripe berries really are sweet, just as you’d expect given Dolcetto’s name, but ironically, I find they’re less sweet than those of Barbera

Ian? Come on Ian! What are you talking about Ian!?? You’ve just undermined your own argument. “Dolcetto from sweet in reference to the grapes but they’re less sweet than other grape varieties”. How does that make any sense Ian??

I get it, it’s much easier to go with the whole “dolce = sweet” etymology instead of “dösset = dosso = dolcetto = grape on the hump of the hill”. One of those etyma requires only a basic knowledge of latinate languages to get the inference of ‘little sweet one’. The other involves an explanation Italian linguistic diversity and harvest times and berry ripeness and so on.

But now you know. So use this information to be absolutely insufferable at a wine event/dinner wisely.

There’s Dolcetto then there’s Dolcetto

With the three varieties of Dolcetto, Barbera and Nebbiolo comes a financial model that is baked into much of Piemonte. Dolcetto is harvested first, then Barbera, then Nebbiolo, with about 2 weeks between each.

This means that Dolcetto gets a head start in fermentation and historically could’ve been bottled before Nebbiolo had barely begun fermentation. I don’t know if climate change still permits for such a system but one thing remains: it seems like a fair few wineries don’t really put much care into their dolcetto and just like a bit of cashflow before they wait 5 years for their Barolo to come on the market.

Obviously, that’s a generalisation. However, for the unknowing eye there is little to indicate as to whether a bottle of Dolcetto has been made with time, care and passion or whether it has been splashed in a tank and been told to get a wiggle on with its fermentation - leading to aggressively diplomatic/unintersting drinking experiences

Through unscientific research I have found Dolcetto can be divided into three camps

1. The hurried

I’ve already spoken about these folks but I won’t be naming names. They are making wine for picnics, big family lunches and food festivals where you just need bottles on the table that seem to never disappear - fair enough, someone’s got to do it. If you pick up a bottle for less than €8 or £12 after reading this article you might be in this camp so you might want to lower expectations accordingly.

2. The “second/third Wines”

Barolo being Barolo there are many producers who have earned their space on wine lists due to the fact they produce Nebbiolo of galactic quality. Often, these bottles come at exclusive prices but thankfully they are not the only wines made by producer. Barbera and Dolcetto are the seconds and thirds, some wineries also make a Freisa or even an Arneis or other white to try and round out their lineup.

Much in the same way that Salvador Dalì designed the logo for Chupa Chups or the fact that they sell fridge magnets with the Mona Lisa on them at the Louvre gift shop, the lesser wines of these producer allows us to get a feel of their production albeit without paying top dollar but also without really experiencing the true magic they work.

Though they are still works of art and great wines in their own right, the issues come when their raison d’être gets a bit lost in translation when they arrive on international wine lists. For example, comparing prices across a Piemontese and a London wine list3, Olek Bondonio (very good producer, though not a “household name”) gets a 2x markup put on his Langhe Nebbiolo from Piemonte to London.

Similarly, with everyone wanting to get their hands on wines from Philine Isabelle, her Barbera has the same markup from Piemonte to London.

Conterno Fantino’s entry level Nebbiolo Ginestrino, what they refer to as their ‘baby Barolo’, is also a similar story.

On the other hand, a big name like Giuseppe Rinaldi, who’s Barolo would easily see a price tag of +£400, has a more than 5x markup on their Dolcetto, being listed at €24 in Piemonte and £114 in London. It is only human to raise your expectation with a 5x markup on a wine and I can confidently say that this is a wine that will not meet it. I’m not saying it’s a bad wine at all, at €24 its a great wine - its position in a wine list has, however, got lost in translation.

Point being: pay Mona Lisa prices for a fridge magnet and you will be sad. Pay fridge magnet prices for a fridge magnet and you will be happy.

3. The passionate

Thankfully, there are some places that never got the whole “Barolo is King” BS memo. Instead of thinking “let’s plant Dolcetto where Nebbiolo doesn’t ripen” they flip the hierarchy on its head and instead reserve the best sites for Dolcetto. Much like Barolo is never labelled as Nebbiolo di Barolo, Dogliani, Ovada and Diano d’Alba DOCGs have all begun shedding their Dolcetto di _____” monikers, so keep an eye out for that.

I’ll happily admit I’m biased toward the wines of Dogliani. Going back to the bangers and mash analogy, these wines are no chipolatas.

You can still have the wines made by the winery that was set up by the first democratically elected president of the Italian Republic, Luigi Einaudi, there. I’ve written about the quasi-religious act of making tripe soup there and the “what grows together goes together” aphorism definitely still checks out. There’s producers to suit everyone’s tastes here:

Though Tommaso Cappa vinifies his wines in stainless steel and concrete, I was shocked by how expressive and open his Dogliani is. Clearly someone who knows what he’s doing (he’s a vine specialist at Ceretto) but isn’t afraid to wander from tradition and make sparkling Dolcetto rosé and call it “Sa di cool” (tastes cool) as well

Cascina Corte treads the line between tradition and experimentation incredibly well. They produce 3 Dolcettos in total, one classic (red label), an old vine single vineyard bottling (green) and the same vineyard plot but vinified in amphora (white). Do I think the increase in price from the classic up to the single vineyard plots is worth it? Not really, but it’s an interesting learning experience and they are lovely people so why not. Distributed by Eataly (in the UK at least), their wines are a picturesque postcard of a lovely couple making lovely wines in their lovely house.

Marziano Abbona’s Papà Celso deserves a mention for holding the Dolcetto fort for many wine lists around. Another classic, though their real magic is Abbona’s Cinerino Langhe Bianco - a Piemontese Viognier that sings of orange blossom.

Valletti and Francesco Boschis both hold plots on the Pianezzo cru sight. Without getting into the weeds about the cru sites of Dogliani, Pianezzo is amongst the highest and therefore can deliver the acidity that Dolcetto sometimes lacks (and one of the reasons people don’t give it as much thought as they should)

San Fereolo - some people refer to her wines as “baby Barolo”. Hopefully that rather demeaning label dissolves on contact with your first sniff of this wine in all its rich, leathery, savoury tones. Besides, its written on the label “In this bottle, you will find, brought back to light after years of darkness and silence, the unyielding dialogue between time and matter in a physic wine – a nature of which we are a part and from which we could never be separated”. A phenomenal wine, should you be able to get your hands on it…

In Ovada there is Borgatta (unclear if his wines are still certified within the DOC), mentioned recently in ’s great write up of VinNatur - sounds like a cool couple, they make a damn cool wine. Maybe not for those who don’t like any VA in their wines but it does help to balance Dolcetto’s natural lack of acidity in this case.

Further afield, there is also Dolcetto d’Alba and d’Asti. Fabio Gea’s Pinotto and Pino have a similar mission statement to San Fereolo. (Is his label a scythe and a sickle, or is it an abstract interpretation of his bum?)

He doesn’t sell his wines in the Langhe as he demands delivering them by horse and cart, stating explicitly that if he were to arrive at wherever wanted to stock them and he didn’t find any hay for his horse, he would turn around without stopping (though it is unclear if he owns a horse, or indeed, a cart). Imported by Gergovie wines in UK though if you are concerned about low sulphur wines and transportation, Acini wine shop in Cuneo is definitely a spot to go in Piemonte

The Piemontese Dolcetto-heads (?) probably wouldn’t let me get away without mentioning Cascina Penna-Currado, which turned heads after being rated 93 points by Wine Front (not that I’m a huge believer in scores but any sign of love for the underdog is always welcome). Luca Currado Vietti and Elena Penna (of Vietti big boy Barolo fame) decided to not go into retirement and set up their own project instead. So far with two Nebbiolos, a Dolcetto, Barbera and a Timorasso it seems like it’s going great and I have also heard rumours about the Barolo to come. Since its a new project its not so ubiquitous in wine shops but I’m sure that will change since my oh my this dolcetto is probably one of the most perfumed I had ever tasted - reminiscent of a tea-fanatic making you try some strange stuff they’ve bought back from a trip to china when all you’d ever drank was PG Tips.

(4. Bricco del Drago)

For many reasons, Bricco del Drago gets its own category. Produced by Poderi Colla since 1969, the original owner of Bricco del Drago (the dragon hill) realised that the Dolcetto grown there was quite different. To give it a bit of finesse they decided to add a small bit of Nebbiolo to make what used to be called Dolcetto Nebbiolato or Nebbiolated Dolcetto in English - 85% Dolcetto and 15% Nebbiolo. In 1987 it was given its own presidential decree making it the first “Super Vino da Tavola”4. A perfect wine for coaxing even the most ardent of Nebb-heads out of their stupor.

Now you are equipped with a selection of some very interesting Dolcetto. The last thing to look out for that could be of interest is Ormeasco di Pornassio DOC. Ligurian Dolcetto but here known as Ormeasco (from the town of Ormea) instead of Dolcetto. The appellation also includes rosè wines with the beautiful name of Sciac-trà (shak-TRA) meaning squeeze-pull in the Ligure language to reflect the quick time spent in the press. Rarely seen outside of the region and is mostly made from a distinct biotype of Dolcetto known as Nibiö - slightly more structured and authoritative than its classic Piemontese counterpart (though some Piemontese producers do have small parcels of it).

//Post script nugget of information that feels necessary to add to a dolcetto article but I haven’t researched it enough/this article is already long enough: The oldest dolcetto vines in the world are in Australia (use that in a pub quiz round for wine nerds as you wish). Best’s Great Western planted them in the 1866 thinking they were Malbec and it was only until the 1980s that they were correctly identified as Dolcetto (though doubts had already been raised about not being Malbec decades earlier). I’ve never had a bottle as it doesn’t seem to be imported anywhere in Europe.

In her 1978 essay On Photography, Susan Sontag opened with the following characterisation of photography:

Even without extending the metaphor of viticulture, the growing of grapes, being its own form of photo-graphy, making an imprint, or graph, of the sunlight provided by a growing season, its clear to see how this characterisation of photography is a near perfect match to wine making (or indeed any other form of fermentation).

To make wine is to appropriate not only grapes but the microbial life growing on, in, and around the grapes and winery. In making wine, the winemaker puts themselves in a certain relation with the world based on their knowledge of how they believe things should be.

What I want to focus on today, however, is not the different philosophies of winemakers, but instead to take a step back from the winemaking, to turn to the vineyard and then take a further step back to examine the effects on the surrounding ecology. Before I get deep into that, I would just like to say that this article is based on my experiences of Piemontese vineyards and discussions/conjecture shared with Italian ethnobotanists (ie not peer-reviewed study)

The map above shows the primary and old-growth forests that remain in Europe. Aside from coming with a whole hoard of ecological issues, the lack of primary old-growth forests in Europe still offers an interesting perspective on nature: what isn’t primary is the result of human influence on the landscape.

In the same way reading into the behaviours of humans tells us who or what they have been influenced by, reading into landscape ecology tells us how the land has been used.

When visiting a vineyard, it is quite easy to read this landscape, there are…

…vines. Obviously. Someone wanted to grapes and therefore planted vines to supply them with grapes. So far, so good.

But until recently, vines did not arrive in the vineyard alone. Instead, they came with a supporting band of other plants that facilitated the creation of the vineyard.

Giant cane (Arundo donax)

Vines are lianas, climbing plants that evolved to use trees as structural support - spreading to the top of the canopy where they produce fruit in hope that a bird will come along and eat it to further proliferate the species.

On the Italian peninsula, the Etruscans were known to train their vines using the system called married vines, where vines would be trained up fruit trees thus removing the any need for additional supports or trellis.

With the development of the concept of the vineyard, helped by training systems and vine management techniques that stress the vine into thinking it is at the top of the canopy and therefore fruiting at knee height, comes the desire for each vine to have its own post.

Enter Arundo donax, known by many names but i’ll go with the rather uninspiring “Giant cane” today. Not originally native to the northern coast of the mediterranean but still present enough in “the olden days” for it to be given the name Arundo donax, respectively the old latin and greek words for “reed”.

Driving around the Langhe, it is quite common to see these big clumps of something that looks halfway between bamboo and maize. Still present in some of the tiny vineyard parcels with old owners, it has largely been replaced by plastic poles hence seemingly abandoned large clumps that are left to grow by the road.

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White willow (Salix alba)

We have our imaginary vines growing on our imaginary cane supports, but there is nothing to tie them to these supports. Enter Salix alba, white willow, a fast growing, shade intolerant tree that responds very well to coppicing (cutting the whole tree down and then harvesting the shoots that are pushed up in subsequent years).

The uses of white willow stretch far beyond those of Giant cane and as such remains more common in the whole of Piemonte, even if it isn't traditionally managed anymore. Travelling across much of the flat, fertile, plains of the region, it is very common to see pollarded willow stumps looking like big fists with branches coming out of them. Leaves for livestock forage, shoots for weaving any sort of basket that was needed. On top of that, willow contains salicylic acid, a precursor to aspirin, and therefore can be applied in the vineyard to aid with disease resistance.

False acacia/Black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia)

If you travel around Piemonte in the beginning of May, there will also be an abundance of white, wisteria-esque, flowers on densely growing trees in the uncultivated parts of wine areas and at the edges of arable fields.

Black locust is not a native plant, nor is it particular easy to get rid of. Its ubiquitous presence in Piemonte always puzzled me - what is this plant doing here? Sure, it might be great firewood but are many of the native trees like oak and ash. Perhaps the Piemontese were drawn to its UV-fluorescent timber? I doubt it. It is not particularly ‘fun’ to manage (if, indeed you can refer to the management of any tree as fun) due to the fact that young growth grows long spikes as defence against grazing.

It was only when I discovered its unusually strong rot-resistance did things start to fall into place; trellis systems for vineyards are expensive pieces of infrastructure and the last thing you want to be doing is having to replace end posts as they have rotted. Before the invention of agrochemicals (ie creosote), the best way to maximise longevity of vineyard infrastructure was through careful selection of timber to prevent against decay.

I’m sure this tree’s other qualities helped it proliferate, but perhaps it would not be so prolific around vineyards were it not for its rot resistant capability.

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Pokeweed/Polkweed (Phytolacca Americana)

So far, all the plants mentioned play an obvious role in the vineyard.

What, then, links a non-native, highly toxic plant to the proliferation of vineyards?

Well, the berries of the plant, the pokeberries, are the least toxic part of the plant after the leaves, shoots and roots in order of increasing toxicity. Whilst it still isn’t recommended to eat them, they have such a strong colour that only a few are needed to make, say, a pink pannacotta.

Ok. That explains why it might be used for pannacotta, but wine?

The ethnobotany professor at my university said that Pokeweed is, in Italy, most prevalent in Piemonte and Tuscany.

Two regions that coincidentally make wines of international regard

Two regions that coincidentally make these wines with thin-skinned, light coloured varieties.

Thus two areas were the colours of their prized wines could do with some adulteration when it came to their colour.

Now, before I get any complaints from winemakers accusing me of slander that I am telling people that Nebbiolo and Sangiovese is poisonous, it’s worth pointing out that this (obviously) no longer happens. Whilst there may be little to no evidence of pokeberries being added to wine, there are two other cases which I would argue support the case.

Portugal was ruled by despot Marquis of Pombal from the mid to late 18th century, during which time he banned Elder (Sambucus nigra) and demand people chop all elder shrubs down. The motive behind this was a suspicion he had that winemakers were adding elderberries to lighter wines to increase their colour for export, something he worried would tarnish the name of Portuguese wine if international markets were to know they weren’t drinking wine purely from grapes.

Italy is no stranger to poisonous adjuncts in wine either. The 1978 methanol scandal lead to almost thirty people loosing their lives as methanol was being added to wines in order augment yields to match demand.

And lastly, for those who, like me, think “but why would a darker wine be thought of as any better instead of just different?” I guess it’s a similar exploitation to people perceiving wine as higher quality because its in a heavier bottle.

When the vineyard stops being a vineyard

The relevance of all of this, the reason why I thought it deserved an article, is the trend in some of the wine industry that is leading to vineyards being ripped out.

Almost nobody uses all of the plants as I have suggested them to be used in this article. Now there are concrete posts with wires strung between them that the vines are attached to with plastic. All of these materials were championed because of their hard wearing nature. No more rotting posts, cracking willow ties, or waiting for trees to grow the right size to turn them into replacement posts.

However, as vineyards are ripped out around the world, as land is unappropriated, the vineyard structure that supported its function is no longer returned to the soil and instead stands as an epitaph in the form of a pile of concrete, wire and galvanised posts.

This story is emblematic of my slightly weird obsession with Piemonte.

Since we live in a world of tourism and over-tourism, the desire is to go beyond the places frequented by the tourists is, for better or worse, quite common. I like to think that this story is what comes of going too far off the well trodden path. It is the story of a witch that lived in Pocapaglia, at the southernmost tip of the Roero.

Ever since I came to know about this figure, the witch, I had thought the story was a rather quaint tale from the Italian countryside - a sort of Italian equivalent of Mary Toft, The Godalming Cat Woman if your familiar. It was only when I began writing it up for publishing on substack did I realise that it fit slightly too easily into a general pattern of treatment of witches in the early modern period. As such, I should probably put here that if you don’t like reading accounts of the treatment of witches at this time, don’t read this article.

This story is primarily a translation, with only minor editorial tweaks, of Euclide Milano’s “Leggende della Provincia di Cuneo” (legends of the province of Cuneo), not that he is a particularly notable author/anthropologist nor is his book a particularly stunning work.

This is the story about a witch called Micilina. Whilst Strega is the Italian word for witch, in Piemontese the word is Masca hence Masca Micilina.

Last thing to add before the story starts: I hope the people who do business in the Roero don’t think of me publicising this story as bad publicity. This story, as dark as its ending is, should be cherished as a mysterious tale that can only come from such a mysterious land as the Roero. I hope you enjoy

The story of the Masca Micilina

Micilina was originally from the town of Barolo (from the editorial slant taken for this article, take that as foreboding), she had moved to Pocapaglia after marrying a man from there.

From the get go, this lady was not at all taken to favourably. She is described as being small and misshapen, and her face as “all wrinkles and lumps”. Negativity seemed to surround her like a fog. This wasn’t helped when one day she touched the shoulder of one of the daughters of the group of women that had gathered outside her house having a chat. The next day, this girl developed a hunchback…

And that wasn’t the last of it.

After that, with the villagers starting to form their suspicions, a boy saw her in the street and immediately started running away out of fright. He tripped and fell, and when he got back up, one foot pointed forwards whilst the other stayed pointing backwards!

A little girl, clearly unaware of the other occurrences that had been associated with Micilina, saw her with a basket of fruit one day. The little girl asked if she could have some fruit, Micilina obliged but as soon as she gave it to the girl she became all crooked. Not even attending the weekly mass could straighten her out…

After that ensued a series of bad harvests. With “evidence” already mounting against her, the finger was pointed at Micilina. This began to set Micilina as an outcast of the town - not easy in such a small place like Pocapaglia

One day, Micilina was walking back through the forests from the neighbouring town. She was terrified. She had used the cherries that she brought to market with the intention of selling as a wager in a bet she made there. Having lost the gamble, she was forced to return home, neither cherries nor money in hand - a disappointment she knew would push her husband over the edge.

As she walked through the forest, she came across a man, broad shouldered and elegantly dressed. He asked her why she was distressed and she explained the situation. The gentleman reassured her. He said that he would immediately make her husband calm and harmless; he drew a circle on the ground, inviting Micilina to place a foot within it, then traced strange figures in the air and muttered incomprehensible words. “Your husband,” he said at last, “is at this very moment in a mulberry tree where he is gathering leaves for the silkworms”

“go to him without fear, for he will not harm a hair on your head” he said.

Micilina went to look for him at the spot he had indicated. She saw her husband standing on the tree, silent and motionless.

She shook the tree, and he fell to the ground with clenched teeth and eyes wide open.

Duro e secco, come un baccalà - hard and dry, like a piece of salt cod.

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Now, who was that man who, from the woods amongst the crags a mile away, had made him bite the dust like that? Good question!

Who else could it have been but the devil!?

Several people had seen him that morning whilst they were out in the woods gathering wood: stocky, short-necked, with a large head of shaggy black hair and a goatee like a billy-goat’s. With a friend and protector of that sort, it was all too clear how Micilina could get up to all sorts of mischief!

Shortly afterwards, she did indeed do something else that is worth recounting. One morning, the baker, standing at the door of his bakery—the only one in the village—called out to her, as he had the habit of doing with all the housewives, to tell her to knead the dough. Micilina did not answer the first two calls; but at the third, she suddenly appeared in front of the bakery with the loaves already prepared.

To the baker, who was dumbfounded, the terrible woman explained, without making any secret of it, that when he had called her the first time, she was on the bridge at Pavia, killing a cart driver; at the second call, having set off immediately to return home, she was already near Pocapaglia, under the walnut tree in the shepherd’s meadow; by the third, she had kneaded the dough and baked the loaves…

Then the woman began quarrelling with the baker that he had not relayed all the costs he owed her for breaking the bread. Once he had eventually set everything straight, she cast a spell on him causing him to hit the ground dead.

By now, no one felt safe anymore.

Everyone trembled at the thought of falling under the witch’s spell.

When they saw her appear, they fled in all directions, terrified. The women screamed, the children ran to hide as if the Ogre were coming to eat them; everyone else hastily made the sign of the cross.

One other mother of the village had left her baby in its cradle while she went to wash clothes on the balcony. She saw Micilina emerge from her own front door, having slipped in to see the baby unnoticed. When the mother went to check on her child, she found it completely deformed, twisted and shrivelled.

After this, there was such as uproar from the people of the town that the civil and religious authorities had to intervene. By their decree, the witch was finally prevented from causing further harm

They bound her tightly and locked her in prison; then they put her on trial from which it became evident, by the accused’s own confession, that she had maintained very close ties with the powers of hell.

She confessed to having killed her husband and the baker, and several others, with her magical arts; she confessed above all to having bewitched countless children. After that, the judges had little to do since she was a confessed criminal, and since an example had to be set to rid the country of such a danger, they condemned the witch to be burned at the stake, for only fire could destroy the influences emanating from her and purify the environment.

And so Micilina was burned alive.

The execution took place on a hill north of Pocapaglia, situated between two enormous chasms, one known as the Rocca della Porcheria and the other as the Rocca della Bignina: the road leading there runs for a good stretch along the edge of the cliffs. But when the procession of the monks and the countless crowd flocking to the spectacle reached those parts, a strange mewing was heard through the air, whilst tangled balls of thread fell onto the road, and voices, now hollow, now shrill, cried out: ‘Hold on, Micilina! Hold on!

Micilina was in the midst of the long procession, between the monks and the tormentors who were jostling her forward. She saw the balls of thread, heard the voices calling her; and if she could have seized one of those threads she would have been saved, for they were cast by her invisible witch companions: but the priest accompanying her was sprinkling holy water around her with one hand and holding up the Crucifix with the other.

When the procession finally reached the pyre already prepared for the occasion, Micilina, pale with fear and more hideous than ever, was tied to the stake that stood above it.

The pyre was set alight. First a thick column of smoke was seen, then the flames cracklingly enveloped the hag’s flesh, whose figure appeared at intervals amidst their flickering and writhing and disintegrating into pieces, until all that remained was a vast hearth, whose ashes were scattered to the wind.

Justice had been done.

The crowd that had witnessed the execution dispersed, satisfied, hoping that the village would now be purified.

However, people begun to see flocks of hens scattered about with myriads of chicks, which, instead of their usual chirping, emitted a screech like that of a blacksmith’s file, and vanished as soon as one looked at them closely. A colossal spider with very short legs was seen, walking like an open umbrella skimming the ground, and as soon as it was spotted, it grunted like a pig, fleeing to hide among the rocks; flocks of rams with enormous horns and bristling hair on their backs were seen, hissing like snakes...

What were all those monsters? Nothing other than Micilina’s witch companions; who were either searching for her or seeking to avenge her. And who knows if there aren’t still some there today, hidden amongst the bushes or in the depths of the abyss, near that steep hillock that still bears the name ‘bric d’la masca Micilina’!

It can be distinguished immediately from the others because it is streaked and mottled with reddish patches, caused by the fire in which she was burned and by her own blood.

Perhaps she too returns from time to time.

When night falls upon those cliffs, and the sky is dark with clouds or streaked with lightning, Micilina and her companions perhaps still gather there on some clearing amidst the woods and perform their wild dance, leaping, running, gesticulating, letting out deafening whistles and screams, flying upon broomsticks, hair standing on end, eyes fierce, sharp teeth in their hideous mouths, long forked tongues, scaly skin, and clawed hands and feet. Keep well away!

Barolo is the supposed “Wine of Kings. King of wines.”

I imagine kings these days must have the occasional yearning not to be King. Even if their brother isn’t an alleged paedophile They must want to be able to drop the fancy dress and all the pomp circumstance and just live their life like any other Joe.

What would that look like? Well, fortunately or unfortunately for the “King” side of things we will probably never know. For the “Wine” side, however, there exists a Barolo without the monarchy.

It’s called the Roero.

Stories and tales are interesting way to approach a sense of place (terroir). Perhaps aren’t perceivable in the glass but they still function as an evocation of a place in writing. That’s why today’s article focuses in part on the wines and in part on an interesting tale.

To bring everyone up to speed, in order for a wine to be considered Barolo, beyond having been grown and vinified in the Barolo area, it must be:

• made from 100% Nebbiolo

• aged for at least 38 months

  • of which at least 18 have been in oak barrels

Just over 1 million cases are made to that recipe every year1.

It can be quite austere stuff. Whilst some of it is budget friendly, lots of it isn’t. A lot of it will also never really see the light of day, condemned to bonded warehouses to be traded, without paying VAT, from the collection of one person to the collection of another.

Sounds great if you're into that sort of thing.

It doesn’t sound so great if you are actually interested in drinking wine (what it’s made for?) instead of paying well over a hundred pounds a bottle nor wait 10 years to drink it.

The protocol for Roero reds instead looks like this:

• 95% Nebbiolo (100% for Riserva wines)

• Aged for a minimum of 20 months

  • of which at least 6 have to be in oak

(side note: Due to the regulations, despite often being 100% Nebbiolo, red wines from the Roero DOCG cannot declare Nebbiolo on the label)

To break this down in layman’s terms, the difference in ageing protocols is reflective of the difference in tannic structure of the wines. As I will explain below, the soils of Barolo give increased tannins such that it is deemed necessary for the wines to undergo ageing in wood, to soften tannins, three times the length of the wood ageing for Roero.

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A hermit in the cliffside

If I was writing serious wine guide, this would probably be the part where we go into a deep dive into soil types. Alas, this is an unserious wine guide, so a short overview of soil followed by a story about an unpopular, fez wearing, hermit will have to do.

Barolo’s soils are described as “calcareous marls” ie chalky, sandy clay. Long story short, when Nebbiolo is grown on marl/clayey soils, they produce powerful, tannic wines built for long ageing. Think dense clay and structured wines - viticulturists might take umbrage with that simplification but in this scenario is holds just enough water/wine.

Roero soils, on the other hand, are sandy. Like really, really sandy. Being lower in elevation than the Langhe hills, they came out of the prehistoric ocean much later than the Langhe - essentially they were a beach until much more recently than the Langhe hills were.

This makes for much lighter wines.

If Barbaresco is generally lighter than Barolo, then Roero is lighter still. Easy going tannins, easily drunk 2 years after vintage and drinks nicely with a short visit to the fridge before serving. What’s great about these wines deriving their lightness from the soils as opposed to winemaking choices as that they still carry a lot of complexity whilst also being lighter going - as opposed to some Langhe Nebbiolo which for some more economically minded producers is prioritised as a way to get Nebbiolo on the market faster, rather than create more entry level/approachable wines of quality.

A story of the sands

Born 17th July 1908 in Bra, Grasso rejected a civilian life and instead went to the hills of neighbouring Pocapaglia and dug himself a grotto. “Tall and sturdy like a chestnut tree” is how he was described by writer Giovanni Arpino. He is said to have only left twice, once to fight for the Kingdom of Italy in what was then Abyssinia, and the other to take a wife - the daughter of a . Following his time in Abyssinia, he would walk around the forest in a red fez. Local farmers would bring him eggs and, along with women as from as far as Turin, ask him for recommendations about herbal poultices and remedies. His accompanying recommendation for such remedies? Praying to the holy father and Mussolini.

Keep in mind this is the same Piemonte that I spoke about in the previous article about Italian cider, the one that was one of the centres of the anti-fascist partisan resistance against Mussolini. Consequently, the partisans didn’t take favour with him.

It has been suggested that the local farmers didn’t seem to mind his presence. Indeed, Italians of an older generation, still to this day, always seem delighted to have a chat with whomever they come across. So a fez wearing wanderer of the hills would have likely been a welcome figure to have a chat with for some of these older gentlemen.

Some, however, suspected he was selling information about partisan locations in the hills to the fascists. Others claimed it was his wife who was the more associated of the two as she was singing for the Blackshirts.

“Fare thee well, your hermit has been sorted out for good” wrote Arpino. On 15th of August 1945, the day of the Italian midsummer celebrations. Both him and his wife were shot in the forest and buried face down.

An ecological nightmare patchwork

Barolo and much of the Langhe hills are an ecological nightmare.

It’s an unpopular opinion, though I should make it clear that I don’t think this is the fault of any individual or group of individuals but instead a natural consequence of a wine with incredibly high demand.

Referencing the cru maps for Barolo and Roero, the maps showing the names of each vineyard and hill that winemakers are able to add to their labels if all their grapes come from that spot, there is a clear difference. Almost all of Barolo is under vine.

From one side, this means that there are no natural barriers to disease transfer. The overwhelming majority of these vines being the same variety (albeit with some difference in biotype), this brings a number of problems to the area. Problems that are only going to make themselves more known as time goes on and the climate keeps changing.

On the other side, it does make for an interesting understanding of the territory. Much like a person with no clothes on, nothing is left to the imagination. In winemaking terms, this means that there is rarely a case of “ah I wonder what the wine would be like if they planted on that hill over there” because more often than not, there are already vines in that area.

Here are the maps to prove those points, with each different colour referring only to a different name, not a different grape variety

First Barolo:

And then, the one for the Roero:

If your annoyed because i’ve put these maps too small for any meaningful details, that’s the point - I’m not so concerned about the overall size of each cru but more about how much wild space there is from cru to cru. Some may say that I have only used a cru map and not a total vineyard map. This is true, but a quick trip to google maps, though it won’t display the information as obviously, shows that the forest cover in the Roero is much, much higher than that of the Langhe.

I think this is best summed up by a poem I found whilst doing some light level research on Italian wikipedia, by Mauro Alfonso:

Between these hills,
even the silence
is green.

There is no such poem for the Langhe. As such, I have decided to pen a haiku focusing on one of the main differences between the Langhe and Roero, for journalistic balance

The vines cover all.
Spraying abounds the landscape.
What about my health?

It’s no big news that densely planted wine regions have above average pesticide use. It would also be unfair of me not to mention examples like the Cannubi Bio project, spearheaded, by Chiara Boschis, that has managed to convert nearly all of the producers farming the Cannubi hill to do so organically. It’s also definitely true that there are some vineyards are the Roero that are managed with all number of sprays.

However, where the vines aren’t growing, it isn’t just the trees and shrubs that are left to grow. It is the imagination as well. In the completely unfarmed parts, often a short walk away from the vineyards, steep cliffs give way to deep valleys. Walking in these parts can feel like entering a different time.

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Phone signal is patchy but the ringing of bells in the local towns reminds you that you aren’t far from civilisation. This ringing also brings you to a previous age of maps and horse-drawn transport, where the bells of the small towns of the Roero guided those who were travelling from town to town.

I’m sure Barolo and Langhe were once like this as well, but they have big castles announcing their presence in the landscape. The towns of the Roero hills, by contrast, seem like they have been balanced on hilltops or wedged into cliffs - kept in place only by the locals, passionate enough to ensure their longevity in this strange landscape. By chance, I have met a few of these people, and they are quite strange in themselves.

One example would be the lady I met in the forest with a mop bucket and knife who had been out collecting Hen-of-the-Woods fungus, presumably to eat. When pressed on how she found them, she looked at us and told us that the tree had given them to her and her only - she had passed by a few days before and, knowing that they were explicitly for her, she took her time to return and eventually make a harvest.

I don’t think she would exist in the Langhe. Obviously I don’t have any evidence, but there is scarce little woodland where she could convene with the trees in the manner in which she does, let alone access them without being seen by every single surrounding property.

My coverage of the Roero won’t stop here. On Friday I will release the story of a witch who lived in the Roero - it isn’t relevant to an understanding of the wines but is still evocative of the wilderness of the Roero. I will also be chatting with producers, divulging more of the history of the place, giving some coverage to the white wines of the Roero and finding good bottles to recommend.

I hope these stories have, at least partially, piqued your interest in the Roero. If not oenologically then perhaps historically or folklorically.

“I thought you were going to write about unknown regions. Why are we starting within walking distance of one of the most sought after vineyards of Barolo?”

That’s a fair point.

When you arrive in Verduno there isn’t loads to do. If I had to guess, the top reasons people who aren’t Verdunese go there are (in order):

1. the hospital

2. a wine tasting/restaurant booking

3. They either took the bus from Pollenzo back to Bra the wrong way or never got off at Pollenzo and ended up in the Verduno hospital car park (accounting for around 70% of my visits)

To give it a bit more love, most guides for the Langhe tell you to go to Piazza Castello in La Morra for the best view of rolling hills of the Langhe. The view from La Morra is great but everyone has been told to go there. Verduno has almost the exact same view, nobody has read to go there in a guide and there’s a green space with benches (above) from which you can enjoy it all.

Back to the wine. There are two grape varieties by the name of Pelaverga, Pelaverga grosso and piccolo. The focus of today is Pelaverga Piccolo. A variety with only c.24ha planted in Verduno, making up just 12% of the vineyards of there (the highest concentration of the variety in the whole country). A fair few well-known wine guides get away with a very clever literary trick when they write about this variety. They will write something along the lines of “Pelaverga Piccolo is said to have been brought to Verduno, from Turin, by Sebastiano Valfrè. In that area they grow lots of Pelaverga Grosso which turns out to be a completely different variety but before genetic testing they weren’t to know that.”

Ok, you’ve told me what it isn’t but I want to know what it is. Across all the obvious resources I could consult, the prognosis didn’t look so good:

“It is frankly difficult to get enthusiastic about; even one of its major producers admits that he personally doesn’t like it.”

–Nicolas Belfrage MW’s Brunello to Valpolicella: The Wines of Northern Italy

“Pelaverga, pale, rare, red grape of Piemonte making slightly fizzy, strawberry-flavoured wines. The even rarer and more admired Pelaverga Piccolo is a distinct variety.”

–The Oxford Companion to wine (Same literary trick here as I mentioned)

“Verduno Pelaverga makes an excellent wine, and credit goes to the local producers who believed enough in the variety to attempt monovarietal bottlings rather than blends with Barbera or Nebbiolo, as was customary”

-Ian D’Agata’s Native Wine Grapes of Italy

Thanks Ian. Luckily, I already have a bit of experience with the grape. So instead of being “put off” by what everyone is writing, I was just shocked at how unjust I thought they’d been to a wine that holds amazing potential

However, if you go onto the websites of some of the producers who make varietal wines from Pelaverga, a very different picture is painted:

“If it’s true that smells redeliver the past, this wine is a little Time Machine. It takes you back, far away, to an exotic setting of mysterious, hazy, lights and shadows”

-G.B Burlotto

“Let yourselves be seduced! Suggestion: drink in company…”

-Fratelli Alessandria

“Only the beauty of the wild poppy [on the label] manages to convey [its] harmony. This rare fruit is an oenological pearl…”

“Like a kiss, the wild poppy, which popular tradition considers an aphrodisiac, awakens desires.”

-Castello di Verduno

Hang on, I was told a few moments this wine was going to be somewhere between “difficult to get enthusiastic about” and “excellent,” what’s with all this chat about seduction, pearls, poppies and time machines??

Even the producers I’ve just quoted seem a reticent about their wines at time. Of the ones that offer bookable tastings on their website, none list their Pelaverga as one of the wines of the flight you will taste. This isn’t because it’s cost prohibitive. Pelaverga rarely, if ever, costs more than £30, easily at the very lower limit of prices of Barolo - so what’s going on? Or, more importantly:

What the F*ck is Pelaverga?

At a glance, Pelaverga glows a crystalline pinky red in the glass. If you have ever been lucky enough to buy early season, forced rhubarb then it is a similar sensation. Glowing pink, radiating through your kitchen, probably doing unmeasurable amounts of good to your mental health purely from you just looking at it. This colour feels religious. Indeed, the previously mentioned Sebastiano Valfrè who is said to have brought the grape to the town, was also responsible for spiritual education of Duke Vittorio Amadeo II of Savoy - the longest serving Savoyard Monarch. Though whether or not that’s actually relevant to the wine you can decide for yourself.

“On the palate,” or if you prefer “when you drink it”, it’s light and slightly peppery. There’s a bit of the strawberriness that is mentioned in the Oxford companion, but not in a sickly sweet, “fruit bomb” kind of way. The strawberries here present themself like wild strawberries: to be enjoyed while they last and making you crave another one straight away.

The Langhe is filled to the coffers with Nebbiolo anyway. Be it as Barolo, Barbaresco, Nebbiolo d’Alba, Langhe Nebbiolo, the places is coming apart at the seams with the stuff.

If you are a so called Nebb-head, this probably sounds great. If you are an anything else-head, not so fun.

Part of the reason that the Langhe is this way is because its had a few centuries worth of investment from various royal families and high courts to be point that it is the best place in the world for growing Nebbiolo. Alongside pioneering quality wines, the royal families, most notably the house of Savoy, were also pioneering the perfect cuisine to go with subalpine climate and powerful wines: pasta made with 40 egg yolks per kilo of flour, roast veal with a tuna mayonnaise (aka a dish where every ingredient is a different protein aka Vitello tonnato) and anchovies and garlic stewed in milk blitzed up then warmed by candlelight (bagna cauda). I would struggle to justify eating any of these dishes on a regular basis. As delicious as they are, they must also be filed under “gastronomic curiosities that are both incredibly emblematic of a place but also almost never found in home kitchens - much like fish and chips in the UK.” Their richness, their indulgence and their extravagance make for delightful restaurant experiences, but I also think that the wines that are quite literally made for these foods should be as excluded from casual weeknight dining as the dishes are.

As a result, even fresher expressions of Nebbiolo, like Langhe Nebbiolo, might not be the best choice especially if you are a “have a glass or two with a meal then pop it back in the fridge” drinker or, by chance, you don’t employ a Savoyard cook to prepare all your meals

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It sounds like I’m trying to rearrange the night sky by saying that Nebbiolo isn’t actually the North Star and that we are all sailing our ships toward wine nirvana in the wrong direction. Really, I just want to suggest that maybe, possibly, there is an argument to be had that our respective North Stars should be those which allow us to most greatly and freely have a great time.

A well-made and nicely aged Nebbiolo is lovely, but how lovely will it ever be if you can’t take it to a friend’s house because you know they will be drinking it out of jam jars and even if you brought nice glasses with you, you would still feel the need to do it justice by explaining a bit about the wine which always (NB: Always) makes so you seem at least a bit like a knob? Pelaverga speaks for itself in the glasses, jam jars, teacups, bowls, pencil pots of all drinkers irrespective of their knowledge of wine. Straight away it looks beautiful - a vibrant red of crystalline clarity that almost glows in the glass (granted you won’t be able to see this if you drink it from a teacup).

However, on matters of taste, there is no reason why my perspective should be blindly followed over anyone else’s. After all, that’s one of the reasons I started writing on substack to begin with - to add a drop to the ocean of wine journalism so that perhaps the tide might change to a more democratised one where people feel they can speak their mind.

So instead of hearing it from me, I reached out to a couple of the winemakers of this grape. Given the small number of the producers of Pelaverga di Verduno, just talking to two producers is equivalent to around 10% of all producers.

Walter Salvano

I first found Walter’s wines on Instagram. “A new, interesting producer in Langhe” I thought. He’s probably got some Nebbiolo plot off some relative and has started making that and now added a Pelaverga, I thought.

So I went looking for his other wines and found no Nebbiolo at all. Just a Freisa and a Pelaverga (at that time). My mind then switched to “who is this guy??” I’m no businessman but this guy must have some guts to produce two fairly unheard of varieties as his first wines. His bottles also look endlessly fascinating. No calligraphic fonts, no medals from some exhibition held in the 19th century, no drawings depicting the setting sun over a vineyard. Instead an abstract, explosive, “familiar yet unrecognisable” illustration in neon colours. Then a back label - endlessly utilitarian, beautifully Helvetica.

Whilst other producers might think of Pelaverga as occupying a similar role as “those wines”, the ones that are quick to make and fast to put on the market, Walter’s are “the wines”. As a result, he grabs the bull by the horns. The 2022 vintage saw 12 day whole cluster maceration, quite long compared to other producers, followed by 7 months in stainless steel and 5 months in bottle. The respect paid to the variety shows up in the glass, with the relatively long maceration having given the wine some welcomed seriousness.

Fratelli Alessandria

An historic producer of Verduno. One of the oldest producers of the Barolo DOCG. Looking at their lineup, there is a lot of black calligraphics on white labels and bottles with black capsules - smart stuff. Then, out pops a bottle with a shiny pink capsule and strange abstract painting. “Speziale” it says - the spiced soul of Verduno. It’s the pelaverga that got me into pelaverga, probably the easiest to source, owing to the fact that whilst being a well renowned producer in the Langhe, they don’t have a strict allocation1.

The grapes for this wine are sourced from a variety of parcels across Verduno (helpfully displayed on a map on their website), this likely gives them a bit of control over harvests and ripeness. I didn’t ask what their harvesting regime is for this wine, but can only imagine that the c.150m elevation change between their highest and lowest plots helps them to keep acidity and tannins well measured and approachable. Again, it’s a gorgeous wine. A wine that feels shameful to drink because you can’t still look at it in the glass afterwards - thankfully there’s a bit left in the bottle!

So, why Pelaverga?

One of the first reasons that I thought a young producer like Walter would have started with a wine as obscure as Pelaverga is because he had always drunk it and so, much like some of the offspring of Barolo producers, it was his calling to make this wine. I was surprised to find out that Pelaverga wasn’t a permanent fixture in his wine consumption.

Though he comes from three generations of winemakers in Diano d’Alba, he didn’t have his first pelaverga until he was 18, in what he described as his first “conscious tasting experiments”. His wines are, unsurprisingly, born out of a desire to push drinkers to reconsider the secondariness of wines made from secondary varieties in the Langhe having added a Nascetta and a Barbera to his lineup.

Whilst I would happily refer to the monoculture of Nebbiolo as a nightmare, Walter takes a more diplomatic stance of reiterating that the territory of the Langhe is clearly a perfect match for Nebbiolo despite there being some issues. Though he left the obvious risks of having such a ubiquitous monoculture to one side (that I will discuss in more detail in my upcoming articles about the Roero), his worry of such Nebbiolo dominance of the territory was in lesser varieties being marginalised purely because there is more money to be made with Nebbiolo.

This was something I brought up with the team at Fratelli Alessandria - the marginalisation of other varieties due to a prioritisation of Nebbiolo and Barolo. They described Pelaverga as the unique sequence in their DNA. There are plenty of small towns in the Barolo area, only one of them is the home of this strange grape called Pelaverga - this is part of what defines Verduno and by extension defines them as producers in Verduno.

Since they rank amongst the most well known of the producers making Pelaverga, I also wanted to know if they ever felt a bit stylistically cramped when it came to making the wine. There are thousands of producers in Barolo, it takes a decent sized group to do some decently radical things (ie the Barolo Boys) in order for people to take notice. In Verduno, on the other hand, I wondered if it ever feels a bit surveilled - as if all the other 19 producers (or there abouts) are constantly judging your winemaking. They told me that instead, with so few producers, Pelaverga production was like a “jam session compared to a symphony orchestra” there is an implicit open-ness to experiment, to collaborate and to see what comes of it.

From all of the articles I read and questions I asked to producers, there really seems to a buzz that can’t quite be tied down when it comes to Pelaverga. The standardised language developed for wines seems to go out the window and they start saying all manner of strange things. People light up when you talk about it.

Even the most un-customer-friendly employee of a wine shop will curl a small grin from the side of their mouth when you ask for a bottle/glass provided they carry it, otherwise they’ll probably give you the blankest of blank stares.

Here is a list of other recommended producers with links to their wine searcher pages to find availability in your market. For European (including UK) readers, Fratelli Alessandria can be ordered from xtrawine though always good to check your local shop to see if they stock any.

• Castello di Verduno

• Scarpa

• Diego Morra

• G.B. Burlotto

• Gian Luca Colombo

Lastly, Walter doesn’t have a distributor in the UK at the time of writing, though he is represented by Stelle wine co. in New York. However, if you come to the Langhe, do make sure to try and find a bottle at:

• Petricore (Alba)

• I malpensanti (Alba)

• Cichin (Alba)

• Eremo della gasprina (La Morra)

• Petti bistrot (Barolo)

• Trattoria la piazzetta (Valdivilla)

I’d love to jump head first into the complete unknown of the world of things in bottles: the wild apple forests of the Tian Shen Mountain range, some grape variety thought lost only to be found in the potting shed of an old Georgian woman, or tales from Sardinia’s largest cork manufacturer. These stories will have to wait. In part because I haven’t written them yet but also because I have never been to the Tian Shen Mountains.

For now, let’s begin with finding obscurity in the familiar.

There’s loads of books written about Barolo and Barbaresco. These books are very high quality fuel for anyone looking to gain as much knowledge as possible on the subject. They are also high quality fuel for your choice of LLM to summarise this information and give it to you as a set of bullet points or tailor-generated podcast.

Writing about places that aren’t written in these books on Barolo and Barbaresco, or at very least writing far more about them than what is written in these books serves a dual purpose. It will hopefully open your eyes to see that there is an unknown, yet high quality, world of wine that doesn’t have any experts or dogma hanging over it like a cloud of orthodoxy telling you what you should and shouldn’t think about it. Secondly, it will likely also end up as fuel for any other LLM to deliver than information to someone else…

Both are valid, though my main intent for this series is the former: lifting the lid on places that produce great wines that have neither benchmark bottles that are financially exclusive if you want to gain an understanding from top to bottom, nor do they have an expert telling you what is good and what isn’t. You can make your own mind up. I don’t claim to be an expert on these places or these wines, I’ve just had enough of them to think that other people should know about them too. If you want to go and become the expert on them, then by all means go ahead. For now, let us delight in their freedom, their deliciousness and their somewhereness.

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Having lived there for three years, it was through Piemonte1 that I came to realise what a strange place both Italy generally and the region specifically is. First and foremost, Piemonte is of course the home of “The Wine of Kings and the King of Wines”, a title I tend to smell a fish about though I am yet to find substantial evidence to suggest its bogus. I am talking about Barolo. 14 million bottles released a year. Each one its own specific expression of that producer and that vintage and that plot. Each one pretty expensive. Each one, as i’ve already mentioned, not destined to be written about on this substack.

Writing about wine from under appreciated regions is great. Drinking the wines from them is great too. Is it inherently better? No, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t great.

It feels like the drinking equivalent of going somewhere on holiday that doesn’t have any wifi and only a shred of mobile signal. In order to be able to understand this place you’re going to have to figure it out yourself. In figuring it out yourself, you can make up your own opinions without any baggage - you won’t feel like a contrarian for going against popular opinion or what critics say either because neither of these two have opinions on the matter.

Places with no wifi have restaurants with little to no reviews. That doesn’t mean these restaurants are bad, it just means that there is no written testament to how good they are. Walk into these restaurants and you’ll probably see locals having a great time with their families as they probably have done for ages. It seems like they are having a good time. So, why does nobody know about these places? The wine equivalent to that is finding a great bottle, the sort of bottle that the guy running the shop (who’s glasses never sit straight on his face) offers you with a shrug saying “this is alright”, enjoying it with friends, thinking its so good that you buy another the next day thinking you’ll keep it to bring it back home with you. Upon returning to the holiday home that evening, you realise you don’t have anything to drink apart from that bottle and so your forced to open it, enjoy it just the same, but you’re leaving the next morning so can’t go back to the shop. “That’s fine.” You think to yourself. “I’m sure I'll be able to get it somewhere when I go home.”

Only to find barely a crumb of evidence as to this bottle’s existence online when you get home. Poorly reviewed or not reviewed at all by critics and carried only by one shop but even they have already sold out of it.

Maybe I went slightly too far with the analogy. The point being, however, that potentially at a loss of widespread availability (The wines I will talk about might involve some extra digging but should be findable in most places) you buy yourself the freedom to be able to enjoy a bottle and have that be your rating. It's a polar opposite to thinking a wine is great only to give it a scan with wine searcher or vivino and see its been given 3/5 stars or 85/100 or even worse: that the likes of Tom Gilbey have said it pairs perfectly with a rusty horseshoe on one of their Instagram reels…

In this series I’m researching Piemontese grape varieties that don’t get their due diligence, stories from places that either aren’t written about because they don’t produce wine or are only written about with regard to their wine production, filling in interesting bits that the wine critics miss out.

Piemonte the Peculiar won’t be a cohesive story with a beginning, middle, and an end. All articles written under this banner will instead be found under a section on the main page, that needn’t be read in a specific order unless obviously stated. The first instalment comes out this Wednesday and I hope to see you there!