Piedmont

As the holidays approach many people are looking for a sparkling wine to serve at intimate dinners and large parties. The region of Piemonte produces two that should be on your list: Asti Spumante and Moscato d’Asti. The area called the Piemonte is at the foot of the Alps in the northwest corner of Italy. This region produces many other wines including dry reds and whites and also some sparkling wines. For a more detailed history of the area please see the first part of my three part series on Barolo, the Piemonte’s most famous wine.

Any regular readers of this column know that my wife, Emily, is pregnant with our first child. Upon hearing this news in June, I promptly began preparing to lay down a case of wine to enjoy with my unborn son 25 years down the road. Two months ago, I wrote about the process of aging wine – how to select it, where to store it, when to drink it, and so forth. Last month I delved into the all-important question of which wines are worth aging by cataloguing five of the wine categories that made their way into the mixed case I put together. This column finishes that project by reporting on the four remaining categories of wine I’ve chosen for my son’s case. In so doing, hopefully I’ll lend some help to others who are searching for wines to put away for a special occasion.

This is the third installment of my three part series on Barolo. In part one we looked at the wine and its history, in part two we examined the modernist versus traditionalist debate, and in this part we will look more closely at some of the finest vineyards to be found anywhere in the world. Then we will also examine the extraordinary string of good and great vintages Piemonte has enjoyed and that are available on store shelves now.

All over the world, in every winemaking area with at least 30 years of history, there is a squabble going on between traditional producers and modernists. As modern science has begun to understand some of the chemical reactions taking place in the creation of wine, some of the mystery has been removed. Universities all over the world (led in large part by the University of California at Davis) have become leaders in what many have termed the international style of wine.

Writing these articles about both well-known and somewhat obscure Italian wines has been fun. Now, however, it is time to shift it into high gear and discuss perhaps Italy’s greatest wine - Barolo. If there were a competition for the best wine in the world, and each country got one entry, my pick for Italy would be to enter a Barolo. Preferably, an aged Barolo, from a great vintage, made by a traditional producer.