Description
Cantine Garrone, Valli Ossolane Nebbiolo Superiore, “Prünent”
When buying wine for myself, I’m a bit of a cheapskate. Much as I would like to, I rarely venture north of $40 a bottle—but when I do, I don’t want to pay for expensive oak barrels, heavy bottles, or a celebrity winemaker. I want authenticity. I want a real wine experience and a sense of place, not something that’s been engineered to taste expensive. I want wines like today’s Nebbiolo from the northernmost reaches of Piedmont. To the best of my knowledge, this is the only wine from this remote part of Italy to reach US shores, and when you consider the minuscule production of Cantine Garrone and the Valli Ossolane region in general, it’s a minor miracle to encounter any at all.
The Valli Ossolane, which only received DOC appellation status in 2009, is a network of river valleys—mountain streams, really—nestled beneath a cluster of Alpine peaks, well north of the other wine zones that comprise the “Alto Piemonte” (Gattinara, Ghemme, etc.). The Swiss border is just a few miles away, and the Nebbiolo wines, grown mostly on traditional pergolas (to maximize sun exposure), share a lot in common with the wines of the Valtellina, in neighboring Lombardy. This is “mountain Nebbiolo” at its spicy, leathery, smoky best, firmly structured for aging but less tannic and lower in alcohol than Barolo or Barbaresco. It’s not just a good story, but a delicious wine that gets better and better the longer its open. I’ll be first in line with my $42, but there’s plenty left for you, too!
This is one of those wines that gets wine geeks like me reaching for a map to scrutinize. The Valli Ossolane (valli being plural for valleys) is a network of mountain streams, the principal one being the Toce River, in Piedmont’s Verbano–Cusio–Ossola province. Switzerland’s Italian-speaking Ticino region is just to the east. Like all the wine appellations of the Alto Piemonte, Valli Ossolane is very small, with roughly 10 hectares of vineyards comprising the entirety of the DOC production area. Cantine Garrone owns one of those hectares, and maintains contracts with several small local growers, many of whom maintain plantings nearing 100 years of age. As in the Valtellina, which sits at around the same latitude, it’s imperative that the mostly terraced vineyards have a southern exposure, to ensure they take in enough sun in this cool climate. The soils are mostly glacial in origin—rocky and schistous, with morainic sand.
The Valli Ossolane also has its own local name for Nebbiolo—Prünent—to add to the roster of synonyms used throughout Piedmont (Spanna), Valle d’Aosta (Picotendro), and Lombardy (Chiavennasca). The Garrone family’s Prünent vines range from 60 to 80 years of age, and while their winemaking history in the area dates to 1920, their first commercial release wasn’t until 1994—when they produced three cases. They’ve since grown the operation, of course, maintaining close relationships with the growers they work with, but this is still very much a garagiste operation, with total production of today’s 100% Nebbiolo bottling topping out at around 700 bottles. Yes, you read that right—bottles.
The 2018 Prünent from Garrone is textbook mountain Nebbiolo. For those who don’t know what that is, it’s a lower-alcohol, lower-tannin, more ethereal alternative to Barolo or Barbaresco, but with all the earthy savor and stirring aromatics that characterize the Nebbiolo grape. In the glass, it’s a pale garnet/crimson red with hints of orange and pink at the rim, leading with aromas of dried red cherry, raspberry, orange peel, leather, underbrush, and a classic “tar and roses” character. It is medium-bodied, firm, and briskly acidic, not the kind of red you want to serve as a “cocktail wine.” It needs food, ideally a northern Piedmontese fonduta or eggy fresh pasta tossed with wild mushrooms or a beef ragù. Decant it 30 minutes before serving at 60 degrees in Burgundy stems if you’re enjoying it now, but be advised that this will age if you are so inclined. I’d love to lose a bottle of this and re-discover it about five years down the line. There could be some serious fireworks! Enjoy!
