Grignolino is the name of an uncommon indigenous Italian grape variety and the wine it makes. Both, obscure for many years, are starting to cause a bit of a stir in wine circles.
It’s an ancient variety, with solid documentation of its presence and importance back to the Middle Ages: In all probability, it’s much older than that. Native to the Monferrato zone in the Piedmont, it is now almost rare, though it was once one of the most widely grown varieties and most prestigious wines of that whole area of Italy – a zone that now includes the far more famous Barolo, Barbaresco, and Barbera. Indeed, many of the fields that now grow Barbera were once the home of Grignolino, which has been steadily ousted by that heartier and more prolifically bearing variety.
.
It’s a wonder to me that any Grignolino is cultivated at all. Everything I read about makes it sound like a horror of a grape to grow. In her Wine Grapes, Jancis Robinson, who shows almost no regard for the variety, notes that it ripens unevenly and is “susceptible to powdery mildew and especially to botrytis bunch rot and sour rot.”
Ian d’Agata, who likes Grignolino’s wines, gives more details about its problems in his Native Wine Grapes of Italy, saying:
- it needs very sunny sites, which puts it in direct competition with more profitable varieties like Nebbiolo, and “it also needs well-ventilated sites, to ward off the risk of rot due to its compact bunch;”
- it “has a huge amount of intravarietal variability;”
- “many of the older grapevines are also virus-affected, and the cultivars suffer from millerandage;”
- it “succumbs easily to common grapevine diseases and yields generally very little juice.”
Given all that, you might wonder why anyone goes to the trouble of growing it.
Yet many winemakers I’ve spoken to have a real fondness for the variety. Bartolo Mascarello and Pio Boffa, I remember, had an affection for the wine, and both made splendid examples of it. Boffa felt strongly that it formed an important element in Pio Cesare’s identity as an authentic and traditional Piedmontese winery.
Because of growers like Mascarello and Pio Cesare, small but significant pockets of Grignolino still survive, principally in the Monferrato zone, and there is now a small but significant revival of interest in the grape. That’s because the wine it makes is, at its best, distinctive and distinguished. A good majority of the wine lovers who get a chance to taste it love it.
Ian d’Agata, for instance, rhapsodizes about it. He calls it “a lovely variety, one of the prettiest in Italy” and says it exudes “a lovely aroma of fresh flowers, small red berries . . . and spices” and “it is blessed with high, refreshing acidity and crisp tannins that leave the palate feeling fresh and clean.”
That touches some of the important bases for Grignolino’s virtues, but to my mind it also leaves out some important considerations. It makes Grignolino seem too simply pretty, too frail. For sure, Grignolino is the very opposite of a powerhouse wine: grace and nuance are what it is about. But it doesn’t lack guts.
A bottle of Oreste Buzio’s 2020 Grignolino del Monferrato Casalese that I opened last week showed a lovely light strawberry-ish color and aroma. In the mouth, it was strawberry-ish too: light and refreshing, but still with evident depth and complexity. It made a delightful dinner companion to a grilled scamorza first course and was equally at home with a dish of pasta all’amatriciana.
.
.
It would be easy to describe Grignolino as a perfect summer wine, but that would underestimate it severely: Its big acidity and equally big tannin make it adaptable to all sorts of food, as I found when opening another Grignolino, a bottle of La Casaccia’s Poggeto, also Grignolino del Monferrato Casalese, also 2020.
Visually, aromatically, and palatally, this was a perfect example of the breed. Though not an optimum companion to a rare steak, it dealt reasonably with the meat, and then bloomed with the cheese course. It almost made love to a delicious, runny Robiola. And it even matched comfortably with the plum cake that followed. This is a fine, versatile wine, not only at home with dishes of all sorts, but also completely enjoyable all by itself.
.
.
You may happen on a bottle of Grignolino that is very dark, perhaps even with high alcohol, but that is an aberration. The classic Grignolino is light in color, just around 13 degrees of alcohol, and easy and refreshing on the palate, yet structured and substantial with all that acidity and tannin. It’s an odd red wine, an outlier, a maverick – maybe even a paradox. That’s all part of its considerable charm.
Despite the growing interest in Grignolino, there is still not a lot of it even in Italy, so it won’t be easy to find in the US. If you come across one, do try it. It’s very different from most of the red wines you’re used to – and we know what a great pleasure it is to find a new wine to add to our repertory.
Tom:
Once again you make me grow nostalgic.
I haven’t had a grignolino in 35-40 years. I have recollections of versions by Pio Cesare, Conterno, Contratto and Gaudio (?). It was a time when ‘wine and cheese’ places were everywhere, and though you couldn’t usually get a grignolino at such establishments, they were available in many wine shops.
Grignolino, to my palate, requires something to eat, and a platter of cheese and salumeria type fare always seemed to fit the bill. As I recall, by itself, the wine was tough to warm up to: always bright, if not high-toned, sometimes just plain grapey (some would say ‘fruity’); but often delicious, made more so by some good cheese, prosciutto and bread.
Did Fontanafredda ever produce wine from this grape, memory–fogged by time–tells me yes, but who knows?
Best,
Joe Calandrino
I am with you, Tom. I am just starting my Grignolino journey, but I have been impressed by it so far. I have tried to get the Mascarello and the Pio Cesare before, but they are always sold out, which may be already a good sign about the virtues of a grape that may not be Nebbiolo but has a character and complexity of its own.
I wish you luck, but you won’t find Mascarello’s anymore: the winery is no longer making it — alas.
Oh, pity. I hope they still produce the Freisa, or has that also gone for good?
As far as I know, Mascarello is still making very small quantities of Freisa.
Tom, I am glad that you have come to the defense of Grignolino. It has always been a favorite wine of mine, but, as you say, is becoming increasingly difficult to find in our current wine environment. Let’s hope it sticks around in Piedmont.