![]() ![]() Wars and phylloxera started the shrinkage. Where once 3000 hectares (7400 acres) of vineyards blanketed these valleys-50 percent more than in the Langhe-now there’s just 100 hectares. One can imagine weary travelers resting with a glass of his rossese in hand.īut passing generations have witnessed a hacking away of the viticultural landscape. These were tended by her great grandfather, whose main occupation was cambio dei cavalli, a stable where long-distance carriages could change horses. Her family had vineyards around San Biagio della Cima da sempre, she says-forever-so she too owns century-old bush-trained vines. “The name was invented to distinguish one Anfosso from another, since it’s a very common name,” says Maurizio.) Then there’s Maccario Dringenberg, founded in 2001, with Giovanna Maccario at the helm. (The winery name is a play on ‘house of the mancinei,’ dialect for left-handed, in reference to Maurizio’s father. Alessandro’s cousin Maurizio Anfosso dei Mancinei started Ka’ Manciné in 2000. His patrimony includes vineyards dating back to 19, the latter with pre-phylloxera rossese bianco vines that are still productive. The Anfosso family-ancient enough to have cofounded the town of Soldano-can count six generations of winemakers leading up to Alessandro Anfosso, who created Tenuta Anfosso in 2002. The top wineries of Dolceacqua have a similar story. His father and uncle subsequently started bottling under the Terre Bianche label, making them among the first to turn professional. “That’s what they did-just like everywhere else in Italy, except those wineries controlled by blue-blood families or monasteries,” says Rondelli. Before the Rossese di Dolceaqua DOC appellation laws came along in 1972, you could sell your excess to local restaurants, consumers in Genoa, or families without vineyards of their own. Rondelli’s great great grandfather worked for the railroad, but also produced vino sfuso. Generations ago, wine wouldn’t be your primary occupation, but anyone who owned land and had mouths to feed made it. ![]() Rondelli’s family tree is deeply rooted in viticulture. Earlier records went up in smoke as war-time fires successively consumed this borderland, including the Austrian Succession War, the Great War, and WWII. ![]() Tax records show that wine has been commercialized and exported from Dolceaqua since the 12th century, at the very least. Not only is Rondelli a local mover and shaker, he’s a history buff who has compiled a chronology of this land (found here on the Terre Bianche website). Terre Bianche is the perfect place to start an exploration of rossese. It thrives in the rain shadow of the Maritime Alps, where it’s significantly hotter and drier than the rest of Liguria. Rossese is always vinified pure in western Liguria, the only part of Italy where it grows. “In Provence, it becomes a secondary grape for rosé, while here it becomes the prince of grapes,” says Rondelli. ![]() Scholars believe that rossese arrived in Liguria via Marseilles, where it had been brought from the Middle East by Greek colonizers. That old French connection extends to the grape as well, for rossese is a genetic twin of Provence’s tibouren. The label shows an antique map where Nice belonged to Italy. Lightweight, but very intense,” says Terre Bianche’s Filippo Rondelli, uncorking his flagship Rossese di Dolceacqua. “It’s an easy wine, but not a stupid wine. It’s even more refreshing when lightly chilled, which makes it exactly the kind of red you’d want to drink on the Italian Riviera. Rossese is low in tannins and “fresh”-the word Italians use to describe a refreshing level of acidity. Its perfumes are an intense mélange of red berry and black pepper and what wine people call garrigue, that savory smell of sunbaked wild herbs and Mediterranean scrub. The rossese grape, one of Liguria’s only native reds, makes wine the color of hard cherry candy-as pretty as anything on Monet’s palette. This mountain-top winery made the first Rossese di Dolceacqua I’d ever tasted. ![]()
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