The Best Wine in the World
Hilltop Vineyards Produce the Raw Material for Extraordinary Wine
May 25, 2009
Some say that the best winemakers are old world farmers, this is hardly a stark or revolutionary notion, but nonetheless may in fact be true. But in Italy, near Turin, modern technology has also been instrumental in understanding why some vines yielded better fruit than others. And through this new knowledge and this fresh approach including the help of mother nature through the relenting of some very uncooperative weather, the culinary scene began to thrive. And with the success of some phenomenal vintages from 1996-200, the wines produced in Langhe have consistently become as formidable as any from any part of Italy and even the world.
This Wine Starts at $100 Dollars a Bottle
In this corner of northwestern Italy, the nebbiolo (Italian), or Nebieul (Piedmontese), according to the Oxford companion to Wine, is a red Italian wine grape variety predominately associated with the Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG) wines of Barolo, Barbaresco, Gattinara and Ghemme. Nebbiolo derives its name from the word nebbia which means fog. In late October, a deep, intense milky-like fog sets into the Langhe region and over the berries where these vineyards are located. As they reach their maturity the Nebbiolo produces a lightly colored red wine that can be highly tannic (bitter), in its youth with scents of tar and roses, bringing a price of US$100 a bottle. As the wine ages, it takes on a characteristic brick-orange hue at the rim of the glass and reveals other aromas in addition to the ones it began with they include:
- Violets
- Tar
- Wild Herbs
- Cherries
- Raspberries
- Truffles
- Tobacco
- Prunes
Nebbiolo wines can require years of aging to gain the proper balance of the tannis with the other characteristics of the wine and the prices moves up as well.
An Innovative Wine Maker Remakes the Industry in the Langhe
Giorgio Rivetti who comes from a line of wine producers began his education in the Alba, and would also come to study Oenology (the study of all aspects of wine) in Turin, but he claims in an May 2007 article in Travel and Leisure Magizine, that his real education came at Margaux. There he was exposed and was able to taste wines day after day and when he came home to the Langhe in 1985, he challenged the wine makers there to do much better. "I wanted them to realize, why would anyone by piemontese wine when it tastes like this? Old, dirty, oxidized. And the French wine was so approachable, so drinkable." Other wine makers agreed, so they set about changing, vintage by vintage.
By 1996, An Extraordinary Vintage Had Arrived
In 1989 and 1990 some important initial success came for these new technology savvy and revitalized producers. Simultaneously, the Slow Food Movement, or a getting away from fast food chains like Burger King and McDonald's, which was centered in the Piedmontese town of Bra helped to make the areas reemerging wine market well known. So by 1996 when that vintage was judged superb and began to sell for high prices, it begins to attracts foreign visitors, it also brings affluence, and by 2001, a reputation for the best wine in the world.
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