Dolcetto Piemonte Wines

Video Transcript

Hi, I'm Mark Middlebrook and I'm here in the Paul Marcus Wines Cantina. In this segment, I'm going to talk about Dolcetto the other every day red wine fromthe region of Piemonte in northwestern Italy. I say other, because Barbera is really the one that I see around the most in wine shops and restaurants and even when I'm in Piemonte visiting. But Dolcetto has a long tradition in Piemonte and there's lots of good Dolcetto there that I personally love to drink. I have three examples here from three slightly different subzones of Piemonte although the vineyards and the wineries are no more than about half an hour apart from each other. In Italy, the system of appellations or named wine styles or a particular appellation is called a Denominazione di Origine Controlatta or a DOC, so I'm going to call them DOCs. So the DOC or named wine style for this one is Dolcetto d'Alba and Alba is a village, Dolcetto is a grape variety. So it simply means Dolcetto that comes from somewhere near Alba, near the town of Alba. And this one is from the great Piemonte grape producer, Elio Altare in the Village of La Morra. The second bottling I have is the DOC or the appellation for it is Dolcetto di Diano d'Alba. And Diano d'Alba is another village not too far from Alba as the name indicates. It's particularly well known for its Dolcetto vineyards. It's a little bit higher altitude than some of the other areas right near by and Dolcetto is an early ripening grape. It seems to like to be up a little bit higher altitude. So Dolcetto grows really nicely here. This is Claudio Alario's bottling of Dolcetto. The third one I have is from yet another village, called Dogliani further south. So the DOC or the appellation for this wine is Dolcetto di Dogliani. Dogliani is higher still than Diano and is really, that's the area that's kind of really well known for Dolcetto. Many of the great Dolcetto producers are in and around Dogliani itself. If I were to open these, put bags over these three wines and mix them up and then pour them into three glasses and then taste them, I'm not sure I can pick out which one is from Diano and which one is from Dogliani and which one is from d'Alba. I like to drink them all and I particularly like Dolcetto with salami and cheeses. Dolcetto has a little bit of tannic grip to it, a little bit of that drying bite, but not too much in a good, in a well made Dolcetto. The tannin does help it work really well with foods that have proteins in them, hence, salami, cheese, some meats, things like that. It can work as an aperitif although for some people that grip is a little bit too much and that's why you might want to have Barbera if you're just sitting around sipping a red wine. But try some Dolcetto, break out some salami, have a piece of cheese. In my view, that's a really good time.

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