SommSelect Editorial Director David Lynch professes his love for Nebbiolo rosé, whose applications range well beyond the beach or pool.
Nebbiolo rosé is my Italophile answer to French rosés from Pinot Noir—those crunchy, invigorating, often-in-need-of-time styles from places like Sancerre, or Marsannay. When you make a rosé from a serious grape, you get a serious rosé, and Nebbiolo is nothing if not serious. I don’t just look to rosé (or, should I say, rosato) for refreshment, but for its incredible versatility with food, and therefore my preferred pink wines are those with real grip and, perhaps more important, savor. There’s a minefield full of sweet, flabby rosé out there, but I know, sight-unseen, that Nebbiolo rosato won’t lead me there. This just-arrived 2016, from the venerable Nervi estate in Piedmont’s Gattinara region, is the perfect example—tangy and mineral, with hints of bitter orange peel and dried flowers, this is not merely quenching; it makes you want to eat. There’s enough going on, in fact, that I could easily see it popping up at Thanksgiving and at other meals outside the traditional rosé “season.”
It’s worth mentioning that Nervi, and Gattinara, are important pieces of Piedmontese history. Before the two World Wars, Gattinara was vastly more developed as a ‘commercial’ wine zone than Barolo and Barbaresco, but they had effectively switched places by the 1960s. The area around Gattinara, which is in northern Piedmont in the shadow of the Alps, became heavily industrialized, and these days the historic DOCG zone has as many abandoned vineyards as producing ones. Nervi, founded in 1906, is one of the original Gattinara stalwarts, and is still in possession of some of its choicest vineyards; I’ve had many memorable bottles of old Nervi Gattinara, from the “Molsino” vineyard in particular, but there was a period when the estate had fallen into disrepair. It was sold in 2011 to a Norwegian investment banker who has restored both the vineyards and the facilities to their former glory, reviving one of the great names in Piedmontese Nebbiolo.
Gattinara’s reds are 100% Nebbiolo and go through a similar aging regimen to Barolo, but the more northerly positioning of Gattinara, and its volcanic soils, results in a gentler, more perfumed/ethereal style of Nebbiolo in comparison to Barolo. This rosato carries a ‘Coste della Sesia’ geographic indication (the Sesia River runs through the major appellations of the ‘alto,’ or ‘upper’ Piedmont), and is a blend of 80% Nebbiolo and 20% Uva Rara (a hyper-local grape of Piedmont’s Novara area).
In the glass, this fresh and snappy 2016 is a copper- and orange-tinted pink in the glass, with aromas of dried cherry, watermelon, blood orange, rose petals, coriander, and herbal tea. It leaves a slight tannic impression along with its acidic twang, with good depth of flavor and a clean, dry, mineral finish. It is ultra-fresh and ready to drink, though I imagine it’ll broaden and mellow a touch over the next year (check it out with your Thanksgiving turkey). Serve this nicely chilled in all-purpose white wine glasses, and bring on the food: Once tomatoes are in season for real, I’ll probably make
panzanella salad every day for a month straight—this wine will be right by my side throughout. Sounds good, doesn’t it?
—D.L.
