According to D’Agata, Gaja, who bought the Moresco plot in the Pajore vineyard, says that it wasn’t in fact rose.
For those of you who have access to Vinous, really nice long post from Levi Dalton about his long term quest with regard to nebbiolo rose, too long to cut and paste.
(Also some additional info from Ian. I didn’t realize there’s a lot of Rose planted in Vatellina)
I thought this might be worth bringing back up. Does anyone know of another 100% Nebbiolo Rose?
I’m not aware of one, at least in barolo/barbaresco. there are a number of wines that include some rose (20-50%), but I’m not aware of any others that are 100%. (Again, the Vinous thread that I started from 2017 is a tremendous resource, but be forewarned that it subsequently in 2019 degenerated into a firestorm involving plagiarism accusations between the principal information sources…)
Yeah, I forgot about that one. I think that’s the only other 100% one that’s current. There are a few past wines no longer made that were 100%. (Vietti Barolo Briacca, Maresco Barbaresco Pajore–although some question if was actually Rose–, One year of Mascarello Barolo Pugnane, etc. Info from Levi Dalton, BTW.)
Yes, I believe most went out with the 1982 vintage. On the plus side, if they managed to make old bones, they should be pretty good right now.
Was inspired by this thread and bought some back vintage Elvio Cogno Vigna Elenas. Just posted a TN thread on the 2004. Great, great wine that was consistent with comments here about Nebbiolo Rose.
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From what I understand most Nebbiolo based wines are a mixture of various cultivars/clones/whatever you want call them. These varieties were not well understood or definitively identified when most vineyards were planted, so the majority of Nebbiolo based wines are field blends of a sort. While they differ slightly in terms of color extraction, flavor profile, etc, their general nature is more similar than different. Aging profiles and character of the wine they produce are all going to be about the same. Barolo legend Lorenzo Accomasso touched on this topic in Levi Dalton’s most recent podcast, and even he says he can barely tell the difference most of the time!
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My understanding is that at this point there is really only significant amount of the Lampia and Michet biotypes, at least in the Langhe. Like most (all?) widely grown grape varieties, there are a large number of different clones though. As mentioned above, Nebbiolo Rose is genetically distinct from Nebbiolo and has been mostly ripped up. Speaking of Nebbiolo Rose, D’Agata notes that Brovia has a couple of parcels of pure Nebbiolo Rose but doesn’t say in which MGA - does anyone know which of their cru(s) have the Nebbiolo Rose?
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I came here ready to talk about rosé made from Nebbiolo 
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Start a new thread! I’d join you 
Cultivars and clones are two very different things, not a matter of choosing which term to use.
To my understanding, there are only a few different clones of Nebbiolo in Piedmont. I’ve no idea if those cultivated in Lombardia or Aosta are the same or different.
I disagree with most of this post, but specifically I came here to note that this is a mischaracterization of what Lorenzo Accomasso actually did say on the recording, which was the opposite. He specifically said that Michet, for instance, “gives a different wine” from Lampia, and he also indicated what is different about Nebbiolo Rosé, in his opinion.
I think it is only right that if you are going to use people’s names in citing them, that you at least make some effort to characterize what they said in a way that is accurate to what was said. Which is on tape.
To add to my previous post, I think it is important that we align on terminology to describe what we are talking about. Cultivars and clones are very different and the italians like to group similar clones together as biotypes (if I have the wrong, please correct me).
Regarding this discussion, Nebbiolo Rose and Nebbiolo are both distinct cultivars (varieties!) not clones. In the Langhe you will hear people really only talk about 2 different biotypes - Nebbiolo Lampia and Nebbiolo Michet. Nebbiolo Michet is just Nebbiolo Lampia with a virus that makes it slightly different. There used to be Nebbiolo Bolla, which was super productive, but my understanding is there isn’t much of it anymore. There are several different clones that are widely planted of both Lampia and Michet. IIRC, D’Agata references a handful of common clones for each biotype in his native wine grapes book, without looking it up I think it was about half a dozen for each.
I think it is definitely a mischaracterization to say that nebbiolo based wines are any sort of field blend. There are clear phenotypic differences between the main biotypes and also between Nebbiolo and Nebbiolo Rose. Regarding planting, they have clearly identified distinct clones of each biotype and when one goes to replant a vineyard they specify the clone type from the nursery, if not doing a massal selection, and this has been no secret for decades now.
Otto, to your point there actually is a different biotype that is very common in Aosta, Nebbiolo Picotener is very common and actually made its way to the Langhe but didn’t yield the best results there.
Levi, thanks for chiming in on this thread. Your podcasts have been invaluable in my personal wine education.
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I’ve only ever had one.
Levi- Mea culpa. You are (of course) absolutely right about what Accomasso said and I appreciate the correction. I just listened back to the pertinent part of the episode, and I completely misremembered his message; in fact, I had it totally turned around. That’s what I get for stating something I think I remember as fact without double checking beforehand. Thanks for chiming in and keep up the great work! ![[oops.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/1/1f129ddad071ffe5db6c99817c3cab666035a70a.gif "oops"){kind=small}
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I had a Conterno Nervi Rosato a month or so ago, it was excellent. A rose made from nebbiolo in the Alto Piemonte. Super crisp, fresh, long, minerally. Probably would age pretty well, but I’d probably go for its youthful freshness.
Alright, thank you! I knew Picotener was a synonym for Nebbiolo, but I didn’t know it was a distinct clone/biotype. Do you have any idea how it differs from Lampia?
And does anyone know what they grow in Alto Piemonte and/or Lombardy?
A propos, I read an interesting article some while back on the effect of temperature during the growth cycle on Nebbiolo. IIRC in the article they recorded the temperatures over the growth cycle in different vineyards in Langhe, Alto Piemonte and Carema, made technical analyses on the grapes during the harvest and assessed the resulting wines that were vinified identically to each other.
What the research showed was that in Nebbiolo tannins and color compounds seemed to grow opposite to each other: the warmer it was, the more tannins the grape produced, but also the more it lost color. The wines made with grapes grown in Langhe were the most substantial with the highest level of alcohol, but also had the lightest, most transparent color, whereas the cooler the temperatures were, the less Nebbiolo lost its color and the darker were the wines.
This just popped to my mind from mentioning Alto Piemonte as some people I know have wondered whether the producers still blend other varieties in their wines in Alto Piemonte (where the practice is perfectly allowed in many appellations) when tasting wines that are supposed to be 100% Nebbiolo but are surprisingly dark for the variety. It seems most likely it’s just the temperature doing its thing.
I think this might depend on where you grow picotener (and Lampia) but if I understood correctly, then for the Barolo area it gives dark color and is less aromatic than Lampia.
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