SommSelect Editorial Director David Lynch sings the praises of Liguria, one of the smallest and most overlooked wine regions of Italy, where the lookalike whites Pigato and Vermentino are bottled evocations of their stunning place of origin.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the northwest Italian region of Liguria, so when I taste a wine like this 2016 Pigato from Laura Aschero, I’m flooded with memories: eating fried seafood in Genoa from cones made of newsprint; pillowy focaccia bread greedily consumed in its birthplace, Recco; impossibly fragrant, delicate olive oils drizzled over the freshest Mediterranean fish; and white wines, like this one, that capture not only the salty tang of the Mediterranean but the forest-green savor of the Ligurian hinterland. It’s easy to forget, even as you taste the pine nuts in your pesto, that Liguria is more woods (and mountains) than beach. This wine is a delicious reminder: It’s made in the woods but tastes just as strongly of the beach, and I cannot think of a more evocative wine to drink during the summer months. It is one of the great Mediterranean whites, right up there with its neighbors in Corsica, Sardinia, and Provence; if you like brisk refreshment, herbaceous aromatics, and a saline minerality that fairly demands that you learn how to fish (or at least find a good fishmonger), this is a must-try.
The ‘Riviera Ligure di Ponente’ appellation (DOC) refers to the western part of Liguria reaching to Italy’s border with France. As the name suggests, this is the Italian Riviera, traversed by the ancient Roman road known as the Via Aurelia, which hugs the Mediterranean coast all the way from Rome to Arles, at the mouth of France’s Rhône River. Along this stretch of coast are beach towns like Loano and San Remo, where well-bronzed 70-year-old men wear Speedos and pull it off, and where, once upon a time, Keith Richards and his entourage sojourned after a night of recording tracks for Exile on Main Street in a villa just down the coast in France. “We would record from late in the afternoon until 5 or 6 in the morning, and suddenly the dawn comes up and I’ve got this boat,” Richards wrote in his awesome autobiography, Life. “Go down the steps through the cave to the dockside; let’s take Mandrax to Italy for breakfast…No passport, right past Monte Carlo as the sun’s coming up with music ringing in our ears.”
I want to believe that Keith and company drank wines like Laura Aschero’s Pigato now and again, instead of just Jack Daniel’s (I can definitely see Mick sipping a ‘pee-GAH-toe’; Keith less so). Pigato is a genetic mutation of Vermentino (even though producers insist that they are completely different grapes), part of a family that extends to Corsica (where they call it Malvasia Grossa), Mediterranean France (where it’s called Rolle, or Malvoise à Gros Grains) and beyond. There’s no consensus as to where Vermentino and Pigato originated, and, in my experience, it is extremely difficult to tell them apart: Both have an aromatic profile that hints at both the sea and the pine forest, with notes of wild green herbs like sage and rosemary and lots of salinity. To my mind, Vermentino (and by association, Pigato) is one of Italy’s top five white grape varieties (my other four? Friulano; Malvasia Istriana; Fiano; and a tie between Verdicchio/Carricante…let the outraged commenting begin!).
Laura Aschero (who passed away in 2009) founded her eponymous winery in 1980, after converting some family land to vineyards in the hills of Pontedassio, a village in the thickly wooded hills above Imperia. The vineyards, with a soil mix that includes limestone deposits from the Maritime Alps that wall Liguria off from neighboring Piedmont, sit at an elevation of about 150 meters, less than 10 kilometers from the Mediterranean coast. The push-pull of mountain/Mediterranean air helps maintain freshness and acidity in the grapes, which also collect a little sea spray on their march to maturity. The Aschero property, which, in typical Ligurian fashion, only produces about 6,000 cases per year, is now run by Laura’s son, Marco Rizzo, with the help of his wife, Carla, and daughter, Bianca.
It’s a pretty simple production process for this Pigato, with an emphasis on freshness: Grapes were harvested in early October and fermented in stainless steel tanks after a short (36 hour) maceration on the skins. The wine was aged in tank for five months before bottling, and here we are, ready to pop and pour. In the glass, it’s a reflective straw-gold with hints of green at the rim, with aromatics that might remind you of Austrian Grüner and Spanish Alabariño, among others: dried green herbs such as sage and mint, green melon and apple, wildflower honey, and sea spray all greet you on first sniff, and carry through to the medium-bodied palate, which is both generously fruity and saline/savory. It is brisk and refreshing, but not just a salty rinse—there’s lots of aromatic complexity, and layers of flavor, to make it genuinely memorable. It's a very fresh style, and a quick decanting maybe 20-30 minutes wouldn't hurt—it will bring the aromatics to the fore. Serve it around 45 degrees in all-purpose white wine stems alongside the simple beauty of the sea: a whole grilled branzino, stuffed with herbs and lemons and grilled, then topped with your best olive oil. Maybe a snappy herb salad and a few little potatoes on the side. Repeat often until the weather turns chilly. It never gets old. Ever. — D.L.
