Italiano
A Giro d’Italia in 80 wines (3): The northwest
The third stage of our tour through Italian vineyards passes through Valle d’Aosta, Piedmont and Liguria.
It is not easy to lump Italy’s three northwestern regions together into a single tasting.
Valle d’Aosta is essentially a mountainous region and its wines are mountain wines with vineyards growing on steep inclines and at very high altitudes. These are more slender wines distinguished by a pronounced acidity.
Piedmont (together with Tuscany) is Italy’s best-known winemaking region abroad and this is a result a centuries old rapport between a generous nature and the work of men who have been able to keep alive ancient traditions and produce wines that are known the world over. Nebbiolo, Barbera, Dolcetto, Grignolino and Freisa, together with the white grapes Arneis, Cortese and Timorasso are the basis for an ampelographic wealth of great interest.
In Liguria, with its hills that seem to drop off into the sea, winegrowing is an activity that borders on heroism.
