An Italian Native from Monferrato

As I mentioned in yesterday's announcement post, Italy's Piedmont region is blessed with a number of indigenous grapes that produce distinctive wines.

This month, I'm beginning my journey into Piedmont with a blended red wine that was brought into the US by wine impresario Randall Grahm back when Bonny Doon expanded (briefly) into the negociant and importer biz. Since this wine was bottled and sold, Grahm has abandoned this venture to focus on biodynamic winemaking--which is too bad, because this wine represented very good QPR. And I'm not the only blogger to think so. Check out the reaction from Taster A at the blog Smells Like Grape.


The 2005 Bonny Doon Monferrato Rosso Piemontese Blend was an interesting wine that, though a bit tight and flat at first, opened up nicely over the course of the evening. It was blended from 70% Ruche, an indigenous Piedmont grape, 20% Barbera and 10% Syrah. Even when first opened, there were heady aromas of white flowers and plums, and these deepened and got more complex and less overtly perfumey as time passed. The flavors reminded me of pomegranate and cherries, and there was a juicy, spicy aftertaste. This wine has lots of acidity from the combination of Ruche and Barbera, which makes it an excellent and adaptable food wine.

We had the wine with a simple, rustic, and flavorful pasta dish: spaghetti with garlicky marsala mushrooms. The garlic was beautiful with the wine's acidity, and the bright fruit flavors in this wine were a nice counterpoint to the earthiness of the mushrooms. I was a bit worried the Marsala and the Ruche would not be a happy partnership, but it was just fine. (If you don't have Ruche, this recipe would be great with another variety from the Piedmont: Nebbiolo)

I got this from the Bonny Doon Wine Club over two years ago, in February of 2007, for $15.30. You can't get it any more--at least not as far as I can tell. However, this wine was actually made by Luca Ferraris, a well-known winemaker from the region and you can find their Ruche for between $18 and $25. Based on the tasting notes on CellarTracker the wine has evolved quite nicely during the two years it has been in my cellar. So if you do go ahead and get some of Ferraris's Ruche, you may want to give it 3-4 years after the vintage date to develop the fruit flavors to go with the upfront aromatics.

Grape Variety #91: Ruche

Ruche is one of those great Italian varietals of unknown origin that has been a local favorite for a long time and has recently been "discovered" by the rest of the world. Usually, this happens only after most of the vines of said grape have been ripped out to make room for some more familiar variety (like Cabernet). Today, between 30 and 40 producers in the hills near Asti in the Piedmont region of Italy grow enough Ruche to make about 10,000 cases of red wine. A fraction of that production goes into making a sweet, dessert version of Ruche using the passito method in which grapes are dried in the sun to concentrate their sugar before fermentation.

Enter Randall Grahm, the man behind Bonny Doon. For the past few years--before he started selling off chunks of the business to focus on biodynamic viticulture--he's been importing Piedmont wines made by Luca Ferraris and selling them with Bonny Doon labels. Ferraris provided a number of wines to Bonny Doon, including a red table wine made from Ruche, Barbera, and Syrah (check out Smells Like Grape's tasting notes on this wine), and one of the region's Ruche passito wines.

The 2005 Bonny Doon Vineyard Ruche di Castagnole Monferrato Passito Ferraris was one of the best dessert wines I've had from Bonny Doon. I paid around $19 for this through the wine club, but it's on sale for $22.00/375 ml, direct from the winery. Often I find their dessert wines so sweet they are downright undrinkable (the botrytized Roussanne is an exception). This wine reminded me of port in its sweetness and flavor palate, but it was lighter in texture and felt less heavy on the tongue. Where this wine really stood out, however, was in its aromas of roses and raspberries. They were so clear and distinct that it was easy to track those flavors as the wine slid over your tongue. It was perfect on its own, and equally delicious with a piece of dark chocolate cake.

Italy continues to amaze me with these indigenous varietals that have so much character, and are so infrequently seen on US wine store shelves. Based on my experiences so far, I have to recommend that if you see an Italian wine made from a grape you've never heard of, you should definitely try it. There are some great grapes out there, and the wines are often very good value.