You won’t find today’s distinctly ethereal, spicy, floral red anywhere else but here and a few locales in southernmost France (where it is known as Tibouren), and it is one of those distinctly ‘Mediterranean’ reds that Italy (and the south of France) does so well. Yet while many such wines are warm, richly concentrated evocations of coastal scrubland and sun, Rossese has more of a ‘mountain wine’ feel—it’s a lighter-weight product of the coastal Alps that define the Ligurian landscape, with ripe, brambly berry flavors, scents of underbrush and wild herbs, and a soft, juicy character that responds well to a light chill. Taste this wine and a broad smile crosses your face immediately, followed by fantasies of drinking some where it is made, maybe with a little zuppa di pesce and perhaps a view of the sea to go with it. I could really go for that right now, and I’m guessing you could, too!
Only about an hour’s drive up the Mediterranean coast from Nice and just inside the Italian border, Dolceacqua is a medieval village once immortalized in a Monet painting. It is one of a handful of western Ligurian municipalities that comprise the Rossese di Dolceacqua DOC, which is physically quite small—there are only about 280 hectares of vineyards planted to Rossese in total, and thus the amount of Rossese wine in commercial circulation is relatively minuscule. Liguria is one of Italy’s least productive wine regions overall, not least because it is almost exclusively mountainous; the most evocative image of Ligurian viticulture is that of the steep terraces of the Cinque Terre, but it really doesn’t matter which part of the region you’re in—there is no flatland viticulture here because there are no plains, just thickly forested hills running right up to the sea, with just a sliver of beach between them.
This is how it is for Anfosso and family, whose terraced, southeast-facing “Galeae” vineyard reaches up past 400 meters’ elevation in soils of marl and schist. Everything must be done by hand here, and in many cases the combination of small production and labor-intensive vineyard work causes Ligurian wines to skew a little expensive. But not in this case: This is an amazing price for such a resolutely artisanal bottle of wine. Via Ka’Mancine’s importer, I learned a telling statistic: In a vineyard like Galeae, given the physical challenges, it requires twice as many man hours to obtain half the amount of fruit produced in a similarly sized vineyard in Montalcino.
One of my go-to Italian wine references lately is Ian D’Agata’s exhaustive “Native Wine Grapes of Italy” (UC Press; 2014), wherein he describes the “neck ache” he gets every time he looks at a Rossese vineyard. As D’Agata notes, Rossese has been genetically linked to the Tibouren grape of southern France’s Var region, where its most prominent grower is the Clos Cibonne winery, maker of several long-lived rosés from the variety. It’s one of several coastal varieties Liguria shares with its Côte d’Azur neighbors; there’s a good amount of Grenache in Liguria, and of course Vermentino (Rolle in France) is its signature white. Rossese is characterized by its light color—kind of a dusty rose/crimson with hints of ruby—and soft, juicy texture. It is very lightweight and wonderfully refreshing, with almost non-existent tannins and acidity that comes off as juicy and bright rather than sharp. In Ka’Manciné’s case, they incorporate about 20% whole grape clusters during fermentation, which lends peppery spice and a little ‘cut’ to an otherwise willowy, floral red.
In the glass, the 2023 “Galeae” looks light and wan but, nevertheless, it persists! It is brightly perfumed, with aromas of dried rose petals, sour cherry, red currants, underbrush, black pepper, and wild herbs. Light to medium-bodied, its tannins are soft, its acidity fresh and lifted, and its alcohol moderate—a silky, juicy charmer through and through, ready to drink now after 15-30 minutes of air and even better with a slight chill. Serve it in Burgundy stems at or near 50 degrees, and while it would make a conversation-piece apéritif, my ideal application for it would be as ‘that red wine that sings with seafood.’ Prawns or maybe some red snapper, touched up with a little tomato, herbs and some chili heat (this wine won’t fight it), would be amazing. Check it out with the attached recipe and consider stocking up for a few months down the line—this has “spring red” written all over it, even though I’m happy to drink it year-round. Prepare to have your socks charmed off. Alla Salute!
