Bruno Giacometto "Canavese Nebbiolo" Piedmont, Italy 2016

FROM THE PIEDMONT GUY:

THE WINE: 100% Nebbiolo. The land where these Nebbiolo vines are cultivated features morainic soils from the Quaternary Period. These soils are typical of a subalpine zone known as the Canavese, which is centered on the town of Caluso. The soils are sandy and stony, composed of pebbles originating from the glacier on the Mont Blanc massif. They are rich in mineral salts and yield remarkable acidity and sapidity in the wines of the zone. The IndoEuropean Celtic tribes were the first to cultivate this vine in the area. The Nebbiolo is planted in the Madonna vineyard, an historical site that produces wine of such remarkable quality that Giacometto opted to plant it exclusively to Nebbiolo in 2005.

THE PRODUCER: Bruno Giacometto is the force behind a dazzling array of bottlings vinified naturally from Erbaluce, a thick-skinned, high-acid white grape variety native to northern Piedmont. Bruno’s ebullience belies his age, and he claims to have never married because Erbaluce is the one true love of his life. Erbaluce di Caluso was Piedmont’s first official white-wine appellation, formalized as a DOC in 1967 and subsequently elevated to DOCG status in 2010. The DOCG encompasses only Erbaluce grown in the zone of Caluso, “where the best Erbaluce wines in Italy are made,” according to Wine Scholar Ian D’Agata. With centuries of family ties to the historic town of Caluso and a winemaking lineage dating back to the early 1960s, Bruno feels most at home in the pergola-trained Erbaluce vineyards of his zone, though he also maintains small parcels of native red grapes like Nebbiolo, Barbera, Neretto, and Freisa. The estate of Bruno Giacometto has been certified organic by ICEA since 2019.