One of the truly fun things we get to do, here at OddBallGrape, is trying some amazing wines at events such as Slow Wine, this past February. And as we promised in that post, we’re finally bringing you the lesson on dolcetto wine, in particular from Cà ed Balos winery from the southern end of Piedmont. Renata Bonacina is the owner and winemaker there, and she was gracious enough to give us a short lesson on dolectto and the wine she makes.
“It’s a challenge,” Bonacina told us about her work in her vineyard. “It’s a challenge every year, every day. But, of course, technology helps to assist you. But the vineyards where we work are steep places which you need to have chain tractors. And we do have lots of manual work to be done, not only during the harvest time, but during… All the canopy management during the summer. So it’s hard work, especially when you have a very hot summer, like last summer. You have to wake up at five thirty in the morning.”
She makes some lovely Moscato d’Asti, but it was her dolcettos that sold us.
“First of all, you have different wines called dolcetto. Our dolcetto is Dolcetto D’Alba,” she explained. “It’s a wine that has a very soft tannin, is usually very fruity. It has alcohol by volume not very high. It’s usually 12.5 [percent]. In some cases you can have higher, considering that it is a different kind of dolcetto compared to mine. Because there are some that can reach 13 [percent alcohol]. But generally speaking, they don’t have a very high volume of alcohol. Usually, dolcetto, traditionally in my region, was the meal wine for all the people. So it’s a quite simple wine, which you pair with many different foods, which I mentioned before. I mean pasta, rice, cheese or meat, because of the fact of having the tannins very soft. It’s not so strong and very easy to pair.”
Bonacina’s dolcettos were gorgeous, full and rich and still pretty dry. She said that she ferments her grapes in steel tanks, then puts them in barrels for five or more months, usually the summer after they’ve been harvested.
Getting the wines, here in the U.S. may be a bit of a stretch, but check out the website for the winery. If you email them, it’s possible they’ll be able to tell you where in the States you can buy the wines. Or if you’re in Northern Italy, you can go to the winery.
In the meantime, if you see dolcetto on a label, think a soft, fruity wine that’s perfect with food. And if you see Dolcetto d’Alba, buy it.