Category: Italy

Based on only a bottle or three and some encouraging reviews, it looks like the big cooperative, Cantina Terre del Barolo, is just getting more and more convincingly quality conscious. It’s fascinating to visit the cellar door, sprawled at the foot of Castiglione Falletto’s big hill. The name Arnaldo Rivera is celebrated by a range of wine produced from the Cantina’s members’ best grapes. Seeing as this extraordinary man was many things, school teacher, mayor of Castiglione and founder of the Cantina, it seems more than an appropriate memorial. Imagine trying to persuade over five hundred very individual growers to trust each other enough and band together in the late 1950s. Particularly at a time when the grape market was loaded firmly in favour of the big negotiants. The model apparently was a school project raising hens and selling eggs. If the kids can work together? Sixty years later and there’s a lovely Dolcetto on the table. Just over medium weight, fat juicy cherries, an undercurrent of liquorice and earthy spice and those soft but furry Dolcetto tannins, all freshened up with food friendly acidity; this is Piemonte after all.

14% alcohol. Cork. An extremely lucky win at auction for $9, helps knowing your obscure Piemonte denominazioni.

92 points.

From one of the original modernista Barolo boys, this is a seriously ripe, deep and chunky Dolcetto. I think I remember reading Altare’s family have some connections with the best Dolcetto denominazione of Dogliani and this certainly has some of the thickness and depth of the best of that less famous bit of the Langhe. Dense and reticent on opening, the fruit finally emerging after a couple of days, showing a toffee and espresso edge to really ripe blueberry and the darkest tart black cherry. Mouth filling skin tannin extract and some cheek sucking on a firm finish. The heat of the vintage shows maybe but this is always a favourite Dolcetto, clean, even and beautifully made. Time to change the variety’s name perhaps, as this certainly isn’t little or sweet.

14% alcohol. Cork. $32 at auction.

93 points.

One of the many joys of living in Melbourne is the enduring influence of the last century’s Italian immigration. In inner north suburban Brunswick there remains the large supermarket, Mediterranean Wholesalers, who direct import our daily staples at great prices and where the last surviving members of the 1950s’ diaspora chat in impenetrable dialects. The wine selection can be a little patchy but for a while it’s included the Piemontese cooperative Terre da Vino at astonishing prices. This humble Dolcetto proved to be the perfect companion to a bowl of their quality Gragnano pasta. Clean, fresh and a good bite of food friendly acidity and tannin, just what you want. Barely medium in weight with gentle scents and tastes of red cherries and a touch of that Piemonte soil. A mouthwatering build of soft sparkle fruit makes it interesting as it then fades out to that simply satisfying end. Dread to think what our Anglo Saxon table would have been like without some Italian influence.

12.5% alcohol. Nomacorc Select Green 500 to be precise. $12. Not sure how they do it.

89 points of simple pleasure.

There’s possibly still a misconception about Dolcetto, the little sweet one; this certainly isn’t sweet or little, more like tackle from one of those Italian centre backs from the eighties. Knees, elbows or whatever it takes. This is savoury, jammed with dark Piemontese earth and astringent to the degree of pizza being a necessity. Dark cherries and soil both in smell and taste. Seems like a hot, dry vintage character with assertive dry skin tannin, almost leathery and very firm but thankfully not sour acidity. If you just tasted between meals, you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking it too dry and unbalanced but that’s not the way to do it. To the table for sweet tomato and pale mozzarella on a long prove chewy base and so delicioso.

13.50% alcohol. Cork. $30 or thereabouts.

92 points but not much else can match a pizza so well.