Pigato: The Briny Grape from Liguria

This month I'm exploring the wines of Liguria, and first up is a fairly pricey bottling of Pigato that I purchased at the Los Angeles Italian wine mecca, Wine Expo.

Ligurian wine--and Pigato in particular--is pretty rare in American wine shops. This is a shame, because Pigato is an intriguing grape, and you once you've tasted it you won't mistake it for something else. The grape has a blotchy, speckled appearance and makes wines that are aromatic and have a distinctive, salty tang to them that reminds me of the seaside.

My Pigato cost $25.99, and for that price I expected it to be memorable. However, I didn't check the vintage (when will I EVER learn to do this, especially with Italian whites, which tend to linger on wine store shelves?) and it turned out that the bottle was from the 2005 vintage and probably two years past peak drinking. You can get a more recent vintage for less money in the market now, and if you can I'd recommend giving this variety a try.

The 2005 Durin Pigato Riviera Ligure di Ponente may be at the end of its life, but it's aging gracefully and still exhibits what I love most about Pigato: the blend of saltiness and citrus that reminds me of a briny preserved lemon. Given its age, the wine was a bit waxy and honeyed in its aromas and flavors, but I still found that combination of lemon pith and saltiness refreshing and it just made it into the good QPR category. However, had the wine been younger and fresher I suspect I would have been more impressed.

Pigato is great with seafood--that's the classic pairing that everyone will mention--but don't underestimate how good it is with pesto. If you've got access to a bumper crop of the herb, whether from your own garden or the farmer's market, whip up some pesto, cook some linguine, toss the two together and chill down your Pigato. The saline tang of the wine is marvelous with the herbaceous salinity of homemade pesto.

Wine Blogging Wednesday #29: Bonny Doon Goes Biodynamic

This month's Wine Blogging Wednesday, the online tasting event dreamed up by Lenndevours, is hosted by Joanne and Jack of Fork & Bottle, a wonderful site dedicated to highlighting artisanal food and wine production. The theme they set for this month is biodynamics, and it is a method of farming that has fascinated me since this past summer when I attended a Slow Food dinner at Oz Farm just outside Point Arena, CA. There I heard direct from the organic farmers how they felt that biodynamics made a difference in the quality of food they produced. At dinner, we sipped our way through a lovely 2002 Porter-Bass Zinfandel (also made biodynamically) which seemed to confirm everything that they said about the value of this farming practice. Since that time I've also had a 2004 Quivira Mourvedre Rose that was simply outstanding, and a 2004 Sollner Gruner Veltliner Danubio which was equally good.

There are lots of resources online to help you understand what biodynamic farming is, and I'm not going to repeat all of that information here. Suffice it to say, if you were plunked down in Europe anytime before 1800 you would be witnessing biodynamic farming. For centuries, wine-makers were using just these methods--right down to the cycle of the moon and stirring compost in one direction. Who knows if science will be able to detect any difference among wines made biodynamically, and those made other methods?

So what do my very unscientific tastebuds tell me about biodynamic wines? I turned to the 2004 Bonny Doon Pigato Ca' del Solo ($20, straight from the Bonny Doon website) to find out. This wine was initially released to the DEWN wine club, but like many DEWN wines it was later released to the general public via internet.

In early 2004, Randall Grahm decided to turn his Ca' del Solo vineyard over to organic and biodynamic farming methods. Formerly the vineyard associated with the Big House Wines, Grahm sold that label in summer 2006 to give himself more time to devote to smaller production, biodynamically produced wines. As best as I can figure out, this wine was made from the first grapes grown biodynamically on the property, and they are just about to wind up the three- year process needed to earn Demeter certification.

The 2004 Bonny Doon Pigato Ca' del Solo was a very good QPR wine with intense mineral flavors. After unscrewing the closure and pouring myself a glass of wine that was such pale straw it was almost translucent, I was able to smell spring flowers and herbs. On the palate, light citrus flavors were accompanied by delicious herbal touches and a deep, profound minerality. As I drank, I was sometimes convinced that I tasted a light saline tang. This was my first pigato, the native grape of Liguria given a porcine name because of its spotted skin. As a result, I can't judge it against other pigatos, but here's what I know for sure: this wine tasted of place, of salt and minerals, and grass. It had the strong mark of somewhereness and terroir that Grahm wants to achieve from his biodynamic switch. It was refreshingly mineral-forward (as opposed to fruit-forward). I just loved it, and would definitely buy more.

With the wine we had the Barefoot Contessa's tomato-based fish stew and it was an amazing pairing. I subbed a pound of scallops for the mussels, and a pound of cod for the bass and halibut, and it was still delicious, with its rich stock made of tomatoes, fish stock (mine from a lobster stock base), and lots of white wine kissed with saffron. The Bonny Doon pigato is made to go with fish--grilled, baked, sauteed, in risotto, or prepared scampi style--with its mineral and herbal flavors.

Now that I've tasted the first fruits from Bonny Doon's switch to biodynamics, I am looking forward to comparing it with later vintages as they are released. But it seems that biodynamic viticulture is going to produce some great wines over at Ca' del Solo.