Italia wins the size prize in global output of vino. And while its volume of pink-wine production isn’t as massive as that of Spain or the United States,96 the diversity, quality, and history of its rosati is unparalleled. Plus, Italy’s enthusiasm for rosato is infectious.
The city of Lecce, in Apulia, hosts an annual international pink-wine summit and celebration called Roséxpo. And in 2012, the Puglians rolled out the world’s first national pink-wine competition. That same year, the international Vinitaly trade show sponsored an unprecedented panel discussion entitled, “Il futuro è rosa . . . anzi rosato.”97
In this chapter, we’ll travel throughout the nation, discovering the distinct styles that are emerging in Italy’s most prominent winegrowing regions.
Abruzzo, the Veneto, and Puglia are Italy’s rosato powerhouses, each specializing in its own signature style of pink. Abruzzo’s joyful Cerasuolo wines look like liquid Red Hots and smell like bowls of cherries. Chiaretto from the Veneto and Lombardy can be anywhere from petal-to-lychee pink and lends itself to lakeside sipping. Both of these appellations—Cerasuolo and Chiaretto—are DOPs specific to rosé and no other style of wine.
Puglia squeezes out seas of rosato. There isn’t a particular pink-specific appellation here like Cerasuolo and Chiaretto in the aforementioned regions, but in the Salento subzone, the rustic Negroamaro grape certainly pulls its weight, making wines of lustrous color and irrepressible exuberance.
Italy’s openness to exploration in the realm of rosé can surprise and delight. In staid Piemonte, time-worn Tuscany, or sanguine Emilia-Romagna, one stumbles across curious rosati that veer wildly from their archetypical red counterparts. Fragrant of balsamic vinegar or fresh basil leaves, ranging from shimmering gold to popsicle-pink, these are the wines of a people always eager to celebrate something—especially food.
Trentino-Alto Adige
Let’s begin our exploration high in the snow-peaked Dolomites, just across the border from Austria and Switzerland. Many of the grapes in Germanophone Alto Adige have names like Gewürztraminer and Müller-Thurgau and self-identify as Teutonic, so one might expect crisp, snowy-pale rosés.
But Alto Adige wines tend to be hearty and packed with pigment, as though the fruit was flushed from the pleasurable exertion of growing on those precariously steep, craggy mountainsides.
Down south in Trentino, the elevations are lower, Italian is the dominant language, and the wine-makers specialize in Pinot Grigio and Chardonnay as well as intense Bordeaux-style red blends. For our purposes, the subzone of Trento is of most interest, as it produces lovely Champagne-style sparkling wines for competitive prices.
ALTO ADIGE/SÜDTIROL
Tyrol was a part of the Hapsburg Empire until the conclusion of World War I, when Italy grabbed it. So on the süd side the local delicacies are smoked speck and beef gulasch (that is, pork fat and the German variation of goulash); and the landscape looks like the set of The Sound of Music. Cue the cowbells.
Even though the vineyards perch on snow-dusted mountainsides, it can get roasting hot here when the sun reflects off the gray rock cliffs and beats down on the Adige Valley. So it’s possible to ripen a wide variety of grapes, of which Lagrein is the local luminary. It makes plummy, opaque red wines and guilelessly juicy, fiery red-currant-hued rosati that don’t ask too much of the drinker. Those Dolomite mountains are so multidimensional that it’s grounding to drink something so firmly rooted.
You know you’re in Alto Adige when the word “winery” appears twice on a label, in both German (kellerei) and Italian (cantina). The plum and black-huckleberry notes of the Lagrein shine through this peppy pink. Enlivened by spritz, exhilarating acidity, and bracing light tannins, it conveys the sense of climbing a mountain and breathing in Alpine air. Ahhhh.
DOLOMITI
Vigneti delle Dolomiti (aka Weinberg Dolomiten) are Alto Adige IGP wines. As with other IGP designations, winemakers can choose from a grab bag of grapes, ranging from traditional local varieties such as Kerner and Schiava to oddball expatriates like Carménère and Petit Verdot.
Gruppo Mezzacorona is a giganto-size agricultural cooperative; its flagship winery, “Cittadella del Vino,” is an architectural showstopper sandwiched between the Adige River and a tributary that feeds into Lago di Santa Giustina. This rosé of Lagrein is delicate and dry, with a creamy texture and a nice spicy finish of ginger, starfruit, and Asian pear. Plus—bargain alert!—it was all of $8 last time I checked.
TRENTO
Trento is the name of the capital city of Trentino as well as a DOP for sparkling wines made in the style of Champagne.98 From the village of Salorno (famous for the ruined Haderburg Castle, which balances precariously atop a rocky pinnacle), this winegrowing zone follows the path of the Adige River south to the town of Borghetto sull’Adige, enjoying mountain breezes and stunning backdrops the whole way. Most of the high-elevation vineyards employ a traditional pergola style of vine-training, which creates lush canopies of green in the summertime. For elegance and creamy luxuriance, I might choose the more obscure sparkling wines of Franciacorta (see opposite page) first. But Trento delivers reliable quality, and Ferrari, Trento’s flagship brand, is widely available.
Giulio Ferrari established Trento as a sparkling-wine center back in 1902, and his successors, the Lunellis, continue to make outstanding wines. Visitors to Italy enjoy visiting their Ferrari Spazio Bollicine (“Ferrari Bubble Room”) wine bars. This rose-gold blend of 60 percent Pinot Nero (Noir) and 40 percent Chardonnay has a soft, yeasty aroma and delivers the total package—assertive bubbles, minerality, raspberry, white tea, and lime—for an extremely reasonable price. This is a non-vintage-designated bottling, as is typical for basic Champagne-style wines. Unsurprisingly, given its name,99 Ferrari bubbly tends to turn up on the finish lines of Formula One races.
Even though its winemakers are permitted to produce Chiaretto and Lambrusco (two wines you’ll meet in the Veneto and Emilia-Romagna sections of this chapter), rustic, simple wines just aren’t Lombardy’s jam. This is the most populous and wealthiest region in Italy, so the signature vino has to be chic enough to be served at Milan Fashion Week and in the bustling restaurants of Brescia. It’s Franciacorta, a very sexy sparkling wine made—as in Trento—in the Champenoise manner. Here in the United States, Franciacorta is more expensive and rare than Trento bubbly, but in my experience, it’s silkier and more luscious, justifying the extra effort required to find and pay for a bottle.
It’s said that, as far back as 1570, a doctor in Brescia published a book about the frothy wines of a small growing zone called Franciacorta. These DOCG-level bubblies still aren’t widely known to us, however, because most of them are consumed inside Italia, and they are pricey in comparison with those of Trento. Franciacorta country is at the top of the Po Valley at the south end of Lago d’Iseo, which funnels cold mountain air down from the glacial peaks of the Stelvio National Park. The nippy nighttime temperatures here give the sparkling wines their bite.
Getting back to the close association between sparkling wine and Formula One drivers, here’s a story for you: During World War I, the Baron Edoardo Pizzini Piomarta Delle Porte sketched an iconic cavallino rampante (bucking horse)100 on a letter to his friend Francesco Baracca, the celebrated Italian aviator and national hero known as the “Ace of Aces.” Baracca was so taken with the image that he had it painted on his plane. Later, Baracca’s mother, a countess, attended a Grand Prix race, where she met Enzo Ferrari and convinced the champion race-car driver to adopt the prancing equine as his mascot, in honor of her fallen son. This vintage bubbly from the Barone Pizzini cantina is, appropriately, zippy, with notes of tart Ferrari-red huckleberries and fresh-cut flower stalks. The organic-certified estate is next to a nature preserve at the southern shore of the lake; the Pizzini empire also includes poderi (wine estates) in Tuscany and Marche.
A decadent powder puff of a gold-tinted pink wine for fat cats, made by the Gatti family. (Yes, that’s right, the “Cats” family, in Inglese.) This crème brûlée of a vintage rosé is a “milledi,” meaning it spent 1,000 days on the lees.101 Matteo Gatti designed the showpiece flat-sided bottle to increase the creamy effect of lees contact. Because cats like cream.
Shielded from extreme weather by the Dolomites and the inlet of the Adriatic Sea, hilly Veneto is a wine-producing powerhouse boasting the most DOPs in the nation. If you live on alcohol-loving planet Earth, you know about Pinot Grigio, Prosecco, Valpolicella, and maybe Soave and Amarone, too. In Venice’s canal-front bistros and at the bars surrounding Verona’s Piazza Brà, these wines are guzzled in great quantities alongside buckwheat pasta, white asparagus risotto, radicchio salad, and fresh seafood from the Venice lagoon. But diners who have tired of the same old, same old are increasingly asking for another Veneto wine: light, refreshing Chiaretto.
CHIARETTO
In high season, the shores of Lago di Garda are a farrago of tour buses and sailboats. Sightseers cram into lakefront bars and cool off with the light, fresh, local pink. This wine style, called Chiaretto, 102 is produced on the east, south, and west sides of the lake, in the Veneto as well as in Lombardy. Although producers in both regions claim their own Chiaretto to be far superior to the stuff that’s vinified on the opposite shore, the casual onlooker needn’t choose sides. Overall, Chiaretto is a simple summer pleasure, typically pink with a lychee-fruit tint to it.103
It has a light, salty character thanks to the glacially deposited soils that encircle the lake, making it an ideal match for seafood.
The key subzone to know on the eastern Veneto shore of the lake is Bardolino. As with Valpolicella and Amarone, the main grapes here are juicy Corvina and herbaceous Rondinella. The western Lombardy side, by contrast, favors the Gropello grape, which brings a black-cherry character to the wines.
The official viticultural title for Lombardy Chiaretto country is Riviera del Garda Bresciano. This includes the smaller subzones Garda Classico and Valtènesi in the northwest, and Lugana on the southern shore.
Villa Cordevigo is a beautiful resort in the Bardolino region on the Veneto side of the lake. It also happens to be the estate vineyard of Villabella, a prominent Bardolino producer. The basic Chiaretto is yellow-tinted, with an enticing pastry aroma. On the palate, there’s nectarine pit, lemon, and an acidity that stings the lips, it’s so thrilling. The estate Chiaretto, “Villa Cordevigo Biologico” ($$), which also happens to be organic, offers a more comprehensive experience, with solid minerality and added aromatic components of cypress (think woodsy sage) and a Meyer lemon finish that keeps creeping back for encore performances.
This family winery, well known for its Soave and Valpolicella, dates back to—you guessed it—1870. The cantina, a stone’s throw from the shore in the town of Bardolino, includes a museum displaying old winemaking implements that vaguely resemble torture devices. Better to grab a beach blanket and a bottle of this smooth, gold-tinted liquid, replete with aromas of ripe peaches and flowers, fresh acidity, and a long finish of nectarine, lemon curd, white pepper, and minerality. The blend is Corvina and Rondinella with a bit of Molinara, and the word “Classico” signifies that the grapes were grown in the lakeside heart of Bardolino.
Bertani’s pale blend is a superapproachable introduction to Chiaretto. It’s three-quarters Molinara that did a short macerazione (maceration) stint plus one-quarter direct-press Merlot. The result: minerality, white peaches, melon, white pepper, some fresh pea shoots . . . is it time for lunch yet?
Cà Maiol (formerly known as Provenza) runs a sleek tasting room just south of Sirmione, the famous fortified spit that juts northward from the south shore of the lake. Celebrity oenologist Michel Rolland oversees the high-end reds here, but this inexpensive pink has a character all its own: Scrubbed clean, with notes of white peach, cranberry, and tarragon, it’s a difficult glass to put down. The blend is equal parts Gropello, Marzemino, Barbera, and Sangiovese. Also, look for the Cà Maiol “Roseri” Valtenesi Chiaretto ($–$$) from the Valtenesi subappellation. A higher proportion of Gropello in the blend makes for a more saturated color and floral aroma, with a juicy palate of cherry flesh, strawberry seed, and nectarine.
On the lake’s western shore, in the province of Brescia, the Comincioli cantina is tucked into the foothills of the Parco Regionale dell’Alto Garda Bresciano, which offers stunning clifftop and mountaintop views of the lake. This bottle, alas, is needlessly heavy. However, the Chiaretto, which looks like it’s tinted with beet juice, has a bouncy red-wine personality: juicy red apple, cinnamon stick, fig, pepper, light tannins. Serve alongside bresaola.
Piemonte is renowned for its truffles, its Michelin-starred restaurants, and its Nebbiolobased collector’s trophies, Barolo and Barbaresco. It also does very well, thank you, with its frothy sweet Moscato, its sturdy reds, Barbera and Dolcetto, and its curious dry whites, Arneis and Gavi. So what role does rosé have to play here?
It’s a distraction. Which is why rosato producers in Piemonte feel free to take artistic license and push boundaries. The wines described below are from cantinas located outside of the primary winegrowing zones. Here, DOP rules are less stringent, so wine-makers have more grapes and techniques to experiment with. And because land isn’t so expensive, they have less to lose by trying something new. These are the quirky wines to slurp while participating in the “Battaglia delle Arance,” the annual orangethrowing melée in Ivrea, when the juice runs orangish pink in the streets.
A four-family cooperative in the village of Costa Vescovato, south of Tortona on the eastern edge of Piemonte, Valli Unite is an organic farmstead with a homey little eatery and a tendency to fundraise for the causes of solidarity and social change. This cloudy orange, spontaneously fermented blend of Moscato d’Amburgo (Black Muscat) and Barbera, plus some Malvasia Bianca and juicy red Brachetto, is a throwback to the days of yore. It’s vinified with a pied de cuvée yeast104 and has an untamed quality. If your bottle is stinky, leave it open for an hour or two. Then return to it to experience this wine’s cottoncandy texture and its notes of dried orange peel, radicchio, almond pastry, and ginger. Imperfection can be a whole lot of fun.
COSTE DELLA SESIA
In Alto Piemonte—the mountainous, forested far north—Coste della Sesia is a subzone that’s west of the Sesia River and at the foot of Monte Rosa, where the Matterhorn is just as close as Barbaresco. High, dry, and sunny, it gets wicked cold at night thanks to those nearby snowy mountaintops, and the sandy, acidic soils seal in freshness and minerality. There’s a small rosato movement happening here among producers who can’t ripen their Nebbiolo grapes to Barolo or Barbaresco standards. If you’re a fan of the lively reds of this neighborhood—notably Gattinara and Ghemme—give these shimmering rosati a try.
Bring this punch-bowl-pink wine “instead of flowers” to the hostess and you’ll be the hit of the evening. This spicy, mouthfilling wine with its relaxing, sunbaked quality feels like it was made for long, meandering conversations. It’s nearly all Nebbiolo—also called “Spanna” in these parts. There’s also a teensy bit of the pigment-rich blending grape Croatina in the blend, as well as Vespolina, which guest stars in the deliciously humble DOCG-classed reds of Gattinara and Ghemme.
Chianti Classico fans know and love the De Marchi family’s Isole e Olena estate, but few Italophiles realize that the De Marchis originally hail from Lessona in Alto Piemonte. (Their rosato has, in the past, been labeled Coste della Sesia, so I’ve classified this wine as such.) Again, this blend is mostly Nebbiolo, with the addition of some Vespolina. Smoky, meaty, and savory, with blood orange on the finish, this hearty rosato keeps the palate engaged with an alternately tannic and smooth texture that’s a bit like sliding your foot back and forth along a tiled shower floor.
Most Europhiles are familiar with the five villages of the Cinque Terre, but how many of us can name a Ligurian wine? Viticulture is scarce on the Italian Riviera, where the terraced slopes overlooking the sea are precariously steep and the arable land very precious.
The whites tend to be aciddriven, zesty, and seafood-friendly. The region is also known for its dessert wines, and for beguiling sour-cherry reds made from the Rossese grape, as well as the midnight-skinned Piemontese Dolcetto and the Tuscan Ciliegiolo. Given that Rossese is genetically identical to Provence’s Tibouren, one would think the Ligurians would make more rosato, but there just isn’t much to go around. This seems wrong given that the Ligurian color palette is cantaloupe, coral, and pink sand.
PORTOFINO105
Ahoy there, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton! Once you and your 1960s celebrity friends have parked your yachts in Portofino’s protected harbor, go ashore and track down a bottle of pink. Because this is one of the few places in Liguria where you can find rosato.
The blue-skinned Ciliegiolo grape gets its name from the Italian word for “cherry” and is a specialty of Portofino. This wine doesn’t disappoint with its cherry color and scent. It’s also delicately floral and wonderfully juicy, finishing with a suggestion of dried leaves, like the gentle resurfacing of a longforgotten memory. The ghost of Maria Callas, strolling the streets of Portofino, perhaps.
Gorgeous sea views, bracing high mountains, rugged terrain . . . Emilia-Romagna hasn’t got those things. Instead, it has Modena, Bologna, Parma, and balsamic vinegar, fresh pasta, mortadella, prosciutto di Parma, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, and I could go on. Happily, the Lambrusco grape, one of Italy’s oldest varieties, thrives on Emilia-Romagna’s flat plains and makes a light, bubbly, dry red that has been enjoying a revival in US restaurants. Now, let’s meet its pink side.
LAMBRUSCO DI SORBARA
Sorbara, 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Modena, is home to a charming balsamic vinegar farm and an eponymous variety of Lambrusco. This thin-skinned grape makes a wine that isn’t red but a deep Gerbera-daisy pink (confusingly, some labels state otherwise, but there’s no mistaking the color when it hits the glass). The best Lambruschi di Sorbara are fresh, floral, fully sparkling DOP wines that are often described as smelling like violets. Lambrusco is a wine that has a reputation for taking a backseat to food, but this wine is no shrinking violet; to me, it’s bottled happiness.
Modena osteria proprietor Cleto Chiarli opened the first commercial Lambrusco winery in 1860; the label for today’s “Vecchia Modena-Premium” dates back to the 1890s. Fermented in a sealed tank to capture fresh fruit flavor—along with carbon dioxide, which expresses itself as bubbles in the wine—it’s aromatic with raspberries and strawberries. I also love Cleto Chiarli’s “del Fondatore” Lambrusco di Sorbara ($$), which is fermented in the bottle in the old metodo ancestrale 106 manner and topped with a spago.107 It’s the color of pink grapefruit juice, with cloudy sediment and the aroma of melon sorbet; on the palate, it’s fresh and satisfying, with a bite of white pepper at the finish. Cleto Chiarli also makes a chic Champagne-style Brut de Noir Rosé from the Lambrusco Grasparossa clone and Pinot Nero (aka Noir). It’s a confection of black-cherry kirsch, lime peel, rose water, honey, and marzipan, with a dry steely finish.
At the seventeenth-century Villa di Corlo, just southwest of Modena, traditional balsamic vinegar is produced in the attic; the cantina also makes metodo classico–style108 sparkling wines. The Sorbara grapes in this cuvée are supplemented by the addition of Lambrusco Salamino. Aromas of pastry crust, peonies, and watermelon candies are joined on the palate by notes of blueberry and lemon. The Lambruschi are held at 32°F (0°C) until just before bottling, so each release is as fresh as possible.
Lambrusco Rosato for the Fantasy Island Generation
The skiers are partying slopeside. The romantic couple wanders through an ersatz Venice. The happy picnickers play baseball and scarf down hot dogs. And in come those violins and that discodance-hall voice, with its flirtatious trill: “Ree-yoo-nee-tee on ice, Ree-yoo-nee-tee so nice, Ree-yoo-nee-tee!”
Riunite, the brand behind those cheesy commercials, came in red, white, and pink, but just one color lingers in our hazy recollections: Riunite rosé in an ice bucket. Or—why not?—poured over ice in a glass. As the tagline went, “Riunite on ice—that’s nice!”
For baby boomers, Riunite—produced in Emilia-Romagna and marketed specifically to Americans—was Lambrusco. And Lambrusco was sweet. And often pink. From the early 1970s through the mid-1980s, Riunite was the top-selling European imported wine in the United States, and pink Riunite was the only image Americans could conjure up of Italian rosato.109 It was the European counterpart to White Zin, the pink wine for the Grey Poupon set who liked to purchase items with foreign-sounding labels. It was Italian wine culture as though viewed through the lens of a Disney camera.
We couldn’t have been blamed for our ignorance. Back then, few Americans were aware of the existence of European dry rosé. Today, Riunite produces a range of five dreadfully, treacly sweet rosati. Fortunately, we have many more rosati—and Lambrusco wines—to choose from.
Tuscany gets a lot of things right: Florence, the picturesque countryside, the artwork, the cuisine. And the wines: Chianti, so-called “Super Tuscans,” and Vin Santo.110 But beware the cheapie Toscana rosato. It’s likely to stink of sulfur and lack personality because the winemaker had better things to do, like make savory red Chianti, and phoned it in. (A similar problem crops up with cheapie Tuscan grappas, which are distilled outside of the region and trucked back in to be sold as “estate-grown” to unsuspecting tourists.) All that said, there are a few standouts that make the most of Toscana’s sweet-and-sour Sangiovese grape.
Winemaker/proprietor Marco Ricasoli-Firidolfi is the great-great-great-great-grandson of Bettino Ricasoli, the iron baron who was the first prime minister of the Italian Republic and established Chianti’s reputation as a fine winemaking region. In the shadow of a seventh-century ruined fortress—the rocca of Montegrossi in Chianti Classico, the heart of Chianti—Ricasoli-Firidolfi farms certified-organic, high-elevation vineyards. His pale-peach rosato is Sangiovese with the addition of some Canaiolo, a traditional black-skinned Tuscan grape. Tropical fruit aromas and flavors—mangosteen, pineapple—enliven this silky, spritzy wine.
The label is a print that Albrecht Dürer rendered from a written description of a rhinoceros, having never seen the animal. La Spinetta’s Tuscan property, Casanova, has a similar story. The Rivetti family is deeply immersed in Piemonte, where it produced the first-ever single-vineyard Italian Moscato in 1978 and runs three separate estates producing everything from Barolo to bubbles to bitters. When winemaker Giorgio Rivetti badmouthed the “Super Tuscan” trend of ripping out Sangiovese and replanting with French varieties like Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, a smackdown ensued, and Rivetti accepted a dare to vinify Sangiovese in Tuscany. Thanks to this hotheaded Italian, we have not only an array of Sangiovesebased reds and a popular, piney Vermentino (white), but also this cool rosato. The fermentation is spontaneous and the grape makeup is half standard Sangiovese, half Prugnolo Gentile clone (the type of Sangiovese that goes into Vino Nobile di Montepulciano). It’s minerally and mouthfilling, with some stray notes of wild greenery.
Tuscany’s most legendary pink wine comes from the historic tenuta (estate) that put Brunello di Montalcino—Italy’s finest Sangiovese appellation—on the map. Since 1927, Biondi-Santi has, as the best Bordeaux châteaux do, topped off and recorked collectors’ old bottles.111 In keeping with this respect for history, the rosato ages in steel vats for eighteen months prior to release and improves with additional cellar age. Greppo, Biondi-Santi’s hilltop vineyard, rises above 1,600 feet (500 m) of elevation; its youngest vines provide the fruit for the rosato. This wine is heady, often getting close to 14 percent alcohol, and is the color of tomato preserves. Alas, it’s almost impossible to find in the United States. But one can always dream.
The wine region surrounding Rome is overshadowed by its better-known neighbors, which include Tuscany and Abruzzo. It didn’t help that for much of the twentieth century, Lazio was written off as a mass producer of white wines. However, in recent decades, winemakers have rediscovered the region’s endemic grapes and worked to revive the region’s reputation. They’re experimenting with obscure varieties like Cesanese and Aleatico, so I’m not quite ready to make any sweeping statements about the new wave of rosato production here, other than: Watch this space.
The red Aleatico grape is transformed into a sweet wine on the northern shore of Lago di Bolsena and, incidentally, on the Isle of Elba. But maverick vintner Andrea Occhipinti vinifies Aleatico as a dry wine—by all reports, he was the first in Italy to do so. He macerates the grapes for one night, allows spontaneous fermentation to take over, then continues to age the wine in open-topped cement vats. The color of this oxygen-rich rosato borders on pumpkin, the texture is matte, and the aroma, at first whiff, is suspiciously like vinaigrette. But allow the wine to sit in the glass and warm up to room temperature. Time introduces an aroma of apricot and flavors of black currant, worn leather, gentle spice, and a finish that’s like opening a door at the end of a dim hallway and seeing sunlight.
The expansive hillsides of Abruzzo rise above the bustling city of Pescara and the sparkling Adriatic, overlooked by the craggy massifs of Gran Sasso and Majella. The richly pigmented Montepulciano112 grape makes savory, lip-smacking red wines, but the impatient viticoltori 113 of the region like to release an early Montepulciano every spring, when the wild asparagus starts poking out of the ground. This is Cerasuolo, named in the Abruzzo dialect for its ripe-cherry color and flavor. This fuchsia-hued beverage is sometimes labeled as a “dry red wine” as a matter of pride by Abruzzi, who take offense at the idea of their flavorful Cerasuolo being classed alongside those flimsy ciphers that are sipped at the beach.114 And indeed, it’s a substantive wine, with a tart balsamicvinegar quality that stands up to the mutton dishes, piquant pepperoncini peppers, and sharp sheep’s milk cheeses of the region.
Take one vaunted noble vinetending family, add one enigmatic winemaker, and you’ve got a cult label. A bottle of Valentini’s red Montepulciano will put you back $300 to $1,000, depending on the vintage; the Cerasuolo is a bit more affordable in the $90 range. It’s said that the reclusive Edoardo Valentini used ancient Greek texts as farming manuals. Since Edoardo’s death in 2006, his son Francesco has let it slip that he barrel-ages his Cerasuolo and holds it back for a year and a half prior to release. Most of Valentini’s fruit is sold; Francesco keeps only a fraction of it, in the best vintages, to make wine from. So you won’t get a chance to taste this spicy, ripe, viscous oddity unless you’re very, very lucky.
Luigi Cataldi Madonna, a philosophy professor at the University of L’Aquila, made a name for his family tenuta by championing Pecorino, an autochthonous white grape that’s scarce outside of Abruzzo and Marche.
Today, joined by his nephew and daughter, Cataldi Madonna makes a pomegranate-tinted Cerasuolo with notes of cranberry skin and sour cherry, accented by clove. The winery also produces an ultra-pale rosé called “Cataldino.” The estate is tucked high in the Apennine foothills, surrounded by a national park, where it enjoys cool breezes off Il Calderone, Europe’s southernmost glacier (which, unfortunately, is doomed to disappear soon).
The winery is named after a tower, depicted in a fourteenth-century fresco in a nearby church, that guides blessed souls to heaven on Judgment Day, and this wine’s scent of incense elicits a feeling of either damnation or sanctitude, depending on how your day is going. It’s fragrant with cinnamon, clove, slate, sage, and almond skin in addition to the more recognizable red cherries. Wisely, the winery suggests to its customers that they serve the “rosa-ae” with brodetto alla Vastese, Abruzzo’s cioppino-style seafood stew.
Humble, agrarian Puglia is known for its menhirs117 dating back to god knows when and its odd little farmers’ huts, called trulli, that could be from the set of The Wizard of Oz.
Puglia is also a winemaking machine, third in Italy in total production volume and churning out 40 percent of all the pink in the nation. Yes, that is a lot of rosato. But the Puglian industry is built on the bulk-wine business, so one must remember that quite a bit of that juice is sold off to be repackaged as supermarket plonk.
Happily, we can buy high-quality Puglian pinks at ridiculously affordable prices, so let’s skip the plonk and focus on deliciousness. Negroamaro (translation: “black bitter”) is the star of the Puglian rosato scene. Vinified as a red, it’s juicy and leathery and tastes like tobacco, coffee, and licorice. As a rosato it has all that, but more of a sour Morello cherry character and an underlying note of bitterness—this is the vegetable-loving land of broccoli rabe, wild arugula, and dandelion greens, after all. It tastes best when one is relaxing at one of the region’s many whitewashed stone masserie, or country estates that have been converted into inns.
SALENTO
There are many small DOC appellations in Puglia turning out rosato, but you’re most likely to see wines labeled with the IGP of Salento, as these have the greatest distribution here in the States. This is the stiletto heel part of the Italian boot and it’s daaang hot. Fortunately, the copper-colored chalky-clay soil retains moisture, and the vineyards tend to be on flat land, so those few drops of precious rain don’t go running off. Salento bills itself as Italy’s rosato heartland, and winemakers here claim that Salento rosato was once as important to Italy as clairet was to France. If not my favorite wine,118 the “Five Roses” from Leone de Castris is said to have been the first rosato bottled in Italy, and it was exported to the United States as early as 1943.
A side project from the Palamà family, whose patriarch was the magnificently eponymous Arcangelo and whose busy winemaker, Ninì Palamà, vinifies at least sixteen different wines under the family label. The thick-skinned Negroamaro grape makes this purplish-tinted rosato. This is more Dr Pepper than 7Up, so don’t try to match it with summer salad or fresh herbs. Its notes of maple, black cherries, and brine beg to be tasted alongside salty soppressata.
The Cantele family is a prominent part of the Salento success story,119 with their chic tasting room and “synesthetic laboratory” called iSensi, where cooking classes and wine-pairing meals are curated to stimulate the eyes, the ears, the nose, and the tongue. This devilish-red rosato was certainly made for food. The Negroamaro grape skins give it tart astringency and a botanical aroma that beg for a pairing with peppery arugula.
There’s something meditative about visiting Li Veli, and I’m not just referring to the cool, pristine winery with its vaulted stone ceiling. It’s the vineyard. At Li Veli, the vines are pruned like trees, and are aligned no matter which way you look. This is the settonce system, a hexagonal layout developed by Roman military engineers. Cool stuff. Anyway, Li Veli’s zippy, 1980s-neon wine lives up to its name: It’s quite li-vely.
Before those Elena Ferrante novels made us all so curious about messy, glorious, stratified Naples, Campania was known for its stunning Amalfi Coast, its idyllic island of Capri, and its remnants of antiquity—most notably, the lava-encased cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum and the temples at Paestum. For oenophiles, Campania offers a vinous history lesson: The wines are still made from ancient grapes such as the bluish-black Aglianico.
As with Negroamaro, Aglianico and its kin can make strong, dark reds, redolent of charcoal, tobacco, leather, and dark chocolate. And they can reach high alcohol levels—not very refreshing in the southern Italian heat, and not what you want to be drinking alongside the seafood and light pizzas of Naples. Rosato to the rescue. Winemakers here manage to coax a surprisingly brisk, fruity pink wine out of the ornery old grape varieties.
IRPINIA
Campania’s top wines come from the province of Avellino, where the Irpinia DOP encircles three DOCG-level subzones—Taurasi, Fiano di Avellino, and Greco di Tufo—in an embrace. If you can believe it, there’s a ski resort this far south (yes, it does employ snowmaking machines) in the Apennine Mountains. Further downhill, slopeside vineyards enjoy day-to-night temperature swings that their flatland neighbors would kill for, making for equal abundance of ripeness and acidity in the wines. The rosati here tend to have a honeycomb undercurrent.
The Mastroberardino clan traces its Irpinian wine-trade roots back to 1878. In the mid-1990s, Walter Mastroberardino broke away from the family company and named his own label Terredora Dipaolo, after his wife. This rosato of Aglianico is sourced from vineyards grown in volcanic soil on windy hillsides at between 1,300 and 2,000 feet (400 and 600 m) of elevation. It comes in an unconscionably heavy bottle, but thanks to its subtle notes of kiwi, fennel, persimmon, and beeswax, you’ll keep lifting it up for another pour.
TERRE DEL VOLTURNO
One of ten IGPs in Campania, Terre del Volturno follows the serpentine path of the Volturno River, an important military prize for leaders from Hannibal to Garibaldi. It touches the coast just northwest of Naples and stretches north to the Parco Regionale del Matese, known for its limestone mountains and pristine lakes. The indigenous grape names to know here are the rare, archaic Pallagrello Nero and Casavecchia. In Pallagrello Nero we once again have a grape that makes a dense, tobacco-redolent red; Casavecchia is more herbaceous. In a rosato, that translates into pleasant sour-cherry and spring-garden notes—fitting, since the Campanian economy relies on its floral greenhouses.
There’s nothing archaic about this raspberry-colored blend of equal parts organically grown Pallagrello Nero and Casavecchia. It’s got palate-scrubbing acidity, a floral fragrance, a hit of spritz, juiciness, and a lime twist. Try it with the regional specialty, mozzarella di bufala.
Yeah, yeah: The grimy toe of the Italian boot is stuck in a previous decade, if not century. But Calabria is beautiful in its decay, a mess of crumbling clifftop towns, laid-back beaches, and unexplored mountainous national parks. The red wines of the local Gaglioppo grape are fragrant but can pack the double punch of high alcohol and chunky tannins on the palate. Gaglioppo also has a tendency toward a weak, orangey color, which has driven some producers to blend this grape with other varieties, like Cabernet Sauvignon. An alternative and, I think, better solution: Simply lighten up a bit on the maceration time and make a knockout rosato.
CIRÒ
Of Calabria’s twelve DOCs, the most respected for Gaglioppobased wines is Cirò. It occupies the notch on the Ionian coast where the toe (of that boot) arches. Old bush-trained120 vines descend from the humble namesake hilltown down to the sea, and the soil is, unsurprisingly, an oceanic calcareous marl. The Gaglioppo reds of Cirò can be wonderfully aromatic, with floral and red-berry notes, and the rosati follow suit.
Calling all red-wine lovers: Try a Cirò before you write off rosato. Librandi’s has the glow of a lit paper lantern and an uplifting cherry-pie nose. Earthiness, ripe red-cherry and blackberry flavors, and a mouth-coating richness make this a candidate for pairing with spicy foods.
Save the sweet Marsala for drinking alongside Sicily’s famous cakes and sweets. Dry rosato made from the blue-skinned Nero d’Avola grape is the perfect fit for Sicily’s Arabian-and North African–influenced cuisine, with its nutmeg, pine nuts, and pistachios. These wines seem to be imbued with the unforgettable scent of orange blossoms and pith that floats through the thick Sicilian air.
Diego Planeta had the crazy idea to plant French varieties in Sicily. He won international attention for his inaugural vintage of an . . . oaky Chardonnay. Today, the Planeta family runs a solar system of estates, with each planet (er, winery) specializing in a different terroir and style of wine.
Here on the banks of Lago Arancio,121 on the southwest outskirts of the village of Sambuca di Sicilia in northwestern Sicily, the soil is riddled with rocks, making for minerally wines. The rosato described below hails from a farm owned by the Planeta family since the 1600s.
This blend of Nero d’Avola and Syrah is a pale apricot color, and remarkably light and refreshing, considering that this winery made its name with blockbuster reds and whites. The nose is light citrus, the mouthfeel is supple, and the palate is pineapple and clove, suggesting the exotic flavor combinations that pervade Sicilian cuisine.
The landscape of the Mediterranean’s largest island has been shaped by volcanoes and seismic activity, as evidenced by the trail of fiery lava that’s always trickling down the side of Mount Etna. Likewise, Italy’s third-most-productive wine region is erupting these days. For one thing, it’s a font of ridiculously inexpensive, ridiculously tasty table wines. For another, it’s home to an exciting new crop of experimental winemakers.
Remember traveling around Sicily in a beat-up rental car and slurping down four-euro wines without ever having to think about them? This is that kinda wine. Stemmari is a sister brand of Sicily’s well-known Feudo Arancio and part of the massive Italian agricultural cooperative Gruppo Mezzacorona. This attractive, perky, gold-tinted rosé is from Nero d’Avola grown in the Ragusa province in the southern part of the island. For all of ten bucks a bottle, it’s a delightful nectarinekissed quaffer that puts other supermarket brands to shame.
The thin-skinned Nerello Mascalese grape, grown on the volcanic slopes of Mount Etna, makes a quirky, enchanting sparkling wine when it is harvested young, getting its bubbles via metodo classico. 122 There’s plenty of mountainside minerality in this glass, along with caramelized strawberries, a hint of drinking vinegar, an assertive fizziness, and a spicy kick to the finish. Ideally it should be consumed at an al fresco bar in the stunning cliff-side resort town of Taormina.
96 More does not necessarily mean better. Spain takes the world trophy for bulk (as in factory-made) wine production; and the United States churns out oceans of “blush” wines, including White Zinfandel, that are sold by the box or jug on the bottom shelf of your supermarket.
97 “The future is rosy . . . in fact, it’s rosé.”
98 This is the metodo classico , aka méthode Champenoise , technique, whereby a carefully attended secondary fermentation in the bottle makes for a creamy, luxuriant sparkling wine.
99 “Ferrari” means “blacksmith” and is a common surname in Italy.
100 The sketch resembles the bucking horse on the coat of arms of the Pinerolo cavalry school, which Pizzini commanded and Baracca had attended.
101 Standard Franciacorta must spend a minimum of 540 days on the lees. Vintage wines must spend 900 days on the lees.
102 Chiaretto translates as “claret.”
103 Aesthetic note: The Bardolino consortium has consulted with the Centre du Rosé in Provence to improve the quality of its pinks, and has declared “lychee” to be the most desirable hue. That said, the spectrum runs from very pale to very bold.
104 The French term for a starter yeast cultivated from an earlier natural fermentation.
105 The DOP also goes by “Golfo del Tigullio-Portofino.”
106 This archaic winemaking technique results in a slightly sweet sparkling wine. To learn more, see this page.
107 A string tied to the top of the bottle to prevent the cork from popping out.
108 Bottle fermented in the style of Champagne—see this page.
109 I’m embarrassed to admit that I was obsessed with wine advertisements as a preschooler.
110 “Super Tuscans” are powerhouse reds, often made from French grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, that fall outside the zone and/or DOP rules for Chianti. Vin Santo is a dessert wine made from dried grapes.
111 Minute amounts of wine evaporate through the cork over time; the oxygen that seeps in endangers the longevity of the wine. Biondi-Santi keeps a library of old wines so that it can top off the depleted bottle with the identical vintage.
112 Montepulciano is a grape. It is not to be confused with the hilltown near Siena by the same name, where the Tuscan wine Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is made.
113 Winegrowers.
114 The Consorzio Tutela Vini d’Abruzzo describes Cerasuolo as “a charming rosé” on its website, which no doubt infuriates these vintners, but justifies our inclusion of it in this book.
115 Farm. Many Italian wine estates have “fattoria” in their names.
116 Formerly just the “Africa” clone. Its new name honors the Binomio vineyard’s role in reviving it.
117 For those who were not raised by the Asterix comic books, menhirs are historically significant standing stones, similar to obelisks.
118 With apologies to its many fans, I find it to be simperingly floral.
119 That is, the recent shift from bulk-wine production to fine estate-grown wines.
120 Bush-trained, or head-trained, vines grow in the shape of a shrub rather than relying on the support of a trellis. The bush shape shields the fruit from sunburn in hot growing regions.
121 As noted on this page, orange trees are ubiquitous in Sicily. They even name bodies of water after them.
123 The majority of the world’s wine-grape vines are grafted onto American rootstock because it is resistant to phylloxera. Own-rooted vines are a prized rarity; they can survive on Etna because the root lice don’t like the sandy, ashy soil.
124 This is a time-honored practice (known as sélection massale in French) whereby the vinetender clips branches from the strongest vines in the vineyard.
125 Cornelissen prunes his vines relentlessly to get the most flavor from every grape.
