On my last evening in the Valle d’Aosta Suzanne rejoined me to travel to Lake Orta (for a relaxing day at the lake ;), and then onward to Gattinara, Ghemme, and for the grand arrival at Spinetta.
On our way to Orta we would be passing right by Ivrea, where the lesser known (but worth knowing about!) wines of the Carema DOC hail from. It was a Saturday, but we thought maybe, just maybe we could stop by Ferrando for a degustazione. Long story short: whomever Suzanne spoke with at the winery then gave her Roberto Ferrando, who then called his dad, Luigi Ferrando himself, and the next thing we knew we were on our way to lunch with him. Only in Italy would they ever be that hospitable!
The Ferrando family has been making wine in the area for around 100 years now, though Luigi started in the late 60's right around when Carema was given a DOC (1967) - but more on the turbulence of that time below. Originally the Ferrando family sold most of their grapes to the Valle d'Aosta region, but in the early 70's Luigi bought his first very own vineyards and began making wine under his own label. The wines themselves come from steep slopes (and I can vouch for them because I drove past them - and after stepping foot in the Valle d'Aosta, I feel I can judge a book by its cover) and are in a conca or horse shoe shape. His first vintage of white wine made of the native Erbaluce) was in 1981, but the wine turned out brown and oxidative, so for some years they actually shipped their Erbaluce grapes to Friuli to have the wine made!
Here was our Degustazione:
One of the most interesting moments of the lunch was when I dared to inquire about the Canavese Rosso as it's exact blend is always a little up in the air. To this Luigi responded with an enthusiastic "Well that's a story!" (Granted, in Italian :)
As it goes, back in the 1960's when the DOC laws were first put into effect (and, in conjunction with the 1967 Carema DOC), the general Piemonte DOC only could be used for wines made south of the Po River... so, basically a regional DOC that actually only applied to 25% of the region - even if it was where 93% of the wine was being made at that time. Being so far north (on the border with Valle d'Aosta) Carema was completely shut out of a DOC unless they wanted to make Carema (which requires a minimum of 85% nebbiolo). On the other hand, the Canavese Rosso is comprised of 70% Nebbiolo & Barbera, with the remainder: neretto, fresia, dolcetto, & nebbiolo puro(?). Ironically enough, they have a Canavese Bianco - which I had seen during my summer at dell'anima. Turns out, this wine (100% Erbaluce from old vines dating to 1870!) was a private label wine they made for a local restaurant in Ivrea. They had a little more, so around 50 cases were exported to the US as a very inexpensive wine labeled "Canavese Bianco". Sadly, I believe all has been sold from dell'anima - and whilst we had no idea what a rare item it was!
All in all a wonderful lunch - probably more so because it came completely out of the blue! We also got to taste a couple of dessert wines that I had never gotten to taste: a wine similar to ice wine called Solativo which is late harvest and then aged 8 months only in stainless steel. (It's the only wine of its style made in the entire region!) Also a 2003 Erbaluce passito (in an unmarked bottle... didn't catch the name) that spent 4 years in oak (and was amazing!)
And to think all we had to do after such a lunch was get to the lake to relax...
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