2014 Luigi Tacchino Barbera del Monferrato

2014 Luigi Tacchino Barbera del Monferrato

Who: Alessio and Romina Tacchino
What: 100% Barbera
Where: Monferrato, Piedmont, Italy
Tastes Like: Earthy, floral nose.  Lush, velvet texture; dried, purply red fruits with a soft, long finish.
Pairs With:  Conchiglie with rabbit; anything gamey.

The What: Barbera is a dark skinned grape planted across the Italian peninsula, from Piedmont and Lombardy, to Emilia-Romagna, to Sicily.  At one point it was the 3rd most widely planted grape behind Sangiovese and Montepulciano, largely due to its presence in local blends.  Traditionalists favor long maceration times and very little oak to produce bright, sour-cherry wines with soft tannin and a certain roundess.

The Where:  Monferrato is a village in the south of the Langhe, a sub-appellation in Piedmont that encompasses the Barolo and Barbaresco zones, just to the north of the Ligurian border. Piedmont itself has a rich history of wine production.  For almost 400 years it was a part of the Duchy of Savoy, a small independently ruled area in the east of France, whose aristocracy found it prudent to marry members of the French aristocracy to help stave off invasion.  These historical ties are the reason wine making traditions in the Piedmont more resemble those of France than elsewhere in Italy: their focus on single-varietal bottlings and organization of production areas into something resembling the Burgundy cru system being a distinct departure from the traditions of blending and elsewhere in the peninsula. 



The Who:  The Tacchino family have been producing quality wines on their 25-hectare plot since the middle of the last century.  Alessio and Romina are the third generation of the family to have control of the vineyards, inheriting from their father and grandfather before them.  About half of the vineyards are planted in a natural amphitheater facing toward the south and southeast, which protects the vines from the cold winds from the Alps in the north.  All harvesting is done by hand through September and October, depending on the grapes needs (the producer grows Gavi, Dolcetto, and Barbera, all indigenous grapes to the Piedmont).

The Barbera del Monferrato DOC is grown on those south-east facing slopes and harvested in mid-October.  It spends 2 weeks in fermentation, then another 7 months in stainless steel tanks to rest prior to bottling.