This week’s Wine Wednesday post is about Cantina del Nebbiolo. I was introduced to this winery at the Barolo and Barbaresco tasting in February. Specifically February 4th. That seems like a century ago.  In any event,  the winery was founded in 1959. It was created by 23 members in the Roero area.  The winery now has 180 members. Some 80% of the grapes come from the Roero hills and another 20% in other areas that are highly suited to quality viticulture such as the Langhe.

The winery has some 300 hectares under vine. The grapes grown include Nebbiolo, Barbera, Dolcetto, Bonarda and Freisa, Arneis, Favorita, Nascetta and Moscato. Roero and Langhe are a series of valleys and hills with a river running through it, the Tanaro.

The Langhe has older soils from the Miocene period, 23 to 5.3 million years ago while Roero is from the Pliocene era – 5.3 to 1.8 million years ago. The Langhe has compact and hard soils of limestone and clay while Roero has more sand.

This Barolo DOCG comes from an area of Monforte d’Alba.  The soils are tuffaceous with red layers, sandstone and clay and date from the Helvetian Era. The vines are thirty years old.  The wine undergoes maceration under temperature control, it then ages in wood and in bottle.  With 14 % alcohol, the wine has a bouquet of lovely violet, small red berry fruit aromas with spice and bramble. Full bodied and concentrated, the tannins are silky and the finish is long.

This is a smallish cooperative that is doing great work. It’s part of my discovery of cooperatives in Italy which account for 55%-60% of Italian wine produced. Don’t pass up a chance to taste this one.