THE WINES OF PIACENZA

After about 6 month's of inactivity because of health problems, it was high time to start over with for me a very interesting event.

Almost everyone is writing about the most famous regions in Italy like Tuscany, Piemonte, Veneto and a few other regions with highly recommended scores on their wines.

Lucky for me I was invited together with some other international journalists/wine-writers by some Consozio’s on food and drinks in the Piacenza area.

Our group in front of the castle together with the owner

Some of the most famous products never hit the press although it is worth knowing about them, like the Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena, Pancetta DOP Piacenza, Coppa DOP Piacenza, Salumi DOP Piacenza, Grana Padano and of course the Parmigiano Reggiano DOP.

The main aim for my visit was of course for the wine.

Little is written or known here about the wines of the Piacenza area and we are wrong to forget about them. Some wines even match some of the greats.

Of course they have a long tradition of making wine in their own manor and one way is making a lot of  “Frizzante” wines in white and red. 

Here in Belgium and other “cold” northern countries are nor used to drink this sort of wines and the frizzante wine we all know is the Lambrusco. To bad most of them imported are to bad to mention it or even drink them.

At first it was strange to taste this sort of wines but after a while one could get used to this in the right circumstances in the sun. Wines for fun I would like to call them. The still wines are a pleasure with some complexity and some reds are even very good to great.

Piacenza has a long history for viticulture. Already in the 10^th and 7^th century BC fossil remains are found of the Vitis Vinifera. The wine tradition continued during the middle ages and is still tradition today.

The Colli Piacenza region stretches out from Liguria in the West, Pavia with Oltrepo Pavese historically known as “Old Piemont”, Piemonte, and Lombardia to the East, with their famous Franciacorta wines. And to the South the rest of the Emilia Romagna region.

The different areas where wine is cultivated are: “Lands of the river Po”; The “Alluvial Plain”; “Ancient Red Land”; “Lands of the Piacenzal Fossils”; “The Val Tidone”; and “The Lower Apennines”.

a view on the Val Tidone wine region

Today’s viticulture exists of around 6000 Ha hilly land with somewhat even climate, with a little bit of more rain in the West, in Val Tidone, than in the East, Val D’Arda, The soil go’s from clay to calcareous and alkaline. Also are 25 varieties of grapes suitable for wine cultivated in the Piacenza area. 

Some of them you can only find them here in this area. Four of them are used to make their greatest wines like the grape variety Barbera and Croatina, locally called Bonarda for the red wines. These grapes are used to make the red wine variety Gutturnio, frizzante or still. Gutturnio wines DOC are always made of a blend of Barbera and Croatina (Bonarda).

Gutturnio comes from “Gutturnium”, a silver jug used by the Romans.

For the white wines there are the Malvasia di Candia Aromatica and the Ortrugo, both only can be found here, also made in different style. The Malvasia Aromatica lets me always think about the Muscat variety.

Naturally they use also other grape varieties, international (French or not) known, like I tasted a superb sparkling wine (Methodo Tradizionale) made from the normally French grape Marsanne, but Napoleon came here to and planted them.

Then there are the IGT wines and others made from all sort of grape varieties.

 Here below a time time-scheme of 3 day's discovering Piacenza wines.

Tuesday April 21st

From Malpensa airport we arrived at Relais Cascina Scottina in Cadeo for lunch, a place I can recommend to stay or have lunch or diner.

A very fine Spumante “Lady Gio” 2010 from  the Azienda Terzoni initiated a perfect lunch followed by the Aquapazza Malvasia ferma 2013, a still white wine, a Malvasia passito 2010 Terzoni at desert, and the Rosso del Boardo 2011 IGT and a Boardo 2011 IGT from the Azienda Boardo for the main plates of the lunch.

All together beautiful wines with the mention for the red wines that the Rosso Boardo was more typical Italian wine than the Boardo because of the addition of to much merlot, it was easy drinkable but international French style wine.

After lunch we moved to install us at Relais Locanda del Re Guerriero in San Pietro in Cerro, a beautiful place next to the castle which has a Museum in Movemento on the top floor of the castle, we visited with the owner.

Because of lack of time, as usual in Italy, we missed a few appointments and drove around for a very long time to the East of the Piacenza hills in the Valtidone region, although with beautiful sceneries, to arrive at the farm Mossi for a visit at the vineyards and diner on site with the owners.

They served us an aperitif Spumante from the Ortrugo grape variety system Charmat together with appetizers and local DOP products as Pancetta, Coppa, Salumi and some different cheeses.Two lady's ware preparing some fresh pasta's for diner.

Then we went in for diner of typical local food and the wines of the estate Mossi. A beautiful revelation. Good red wine but we missed the Riserva of the estate.

Interesting to know is the fact that the Mossi estate has been in the Mossi family for over 500 years, but because there are no more heirs, slowly the company is taken over by the Profumo family. Above you see in the picture the old owner Mossi.

Time to say goodbye and goodnight for a very short night?

Wednesday April 22^nd

After a well deserved short night it was planned to start early to save some time, but as already said, in stead of starting half an hour early we started the planned Masterclass one hour late.

We discovered different white and red wines made from Ortrugo, Malvasia Candia Aromatica (link to Muscat grapes), Bonarda and Barbera grapes as monocépages or mixed, in different style as Frizzante, Spumante, still or late harvest wines. A welcoming explanation of the typical wines of the region.

I don’t see immediate import in Belgium for the Frizzante wines although I can imagine on a warm sunny day in the summer a welcome fresh wine like this on the terrace, even in the red version in stead of some sweet cocktails.

The red wines came in the frizzante version but also in still wines, called Gutturnio, made from Barbera and Bonarda / Croatina grapes.

Of course we had wines from different estates like Azienda Aradelli, Barracone, Barratiere, Cantina Valtidone, Il Casello, La Ciocca, La Pioppa, Loschi Enrico, and Lusignani.

After this we had a welcoming party from the Lady Mayor from San Pietro in Cerro and Notables together with a presentation of the local products of different Consozio’s made by the children of the local basic school.

Only then we could meet the people of the participating wineries for about one hour !!! Stupid. 
Here below 2 of the 10 interesting winemakers I had time to visit.

So I met 10 winemakers and tasted only the white wines, because there was not sufficient time. 

We had to follow an other Masterclass of the local DOP food products, meaning some pancetta, coppa, salumi, cheese and ice cream for desert for TWO hours.

I rather had no lunch or appetizer and continued the tasting because after this there was nobody left to taste some wines.

After this we moved to the Val d’Arda region where we visited the “Borgo Fortificato di Vigoleno”, a bit of history with a short tasting of the Vin Santo di Vigoleno.

Again on the bus for the visit to Castell’Arquato for a walk in the local town with a visit to the paleontological Museum.

Time to move again and we moved to our diner appointment for this evening in Cortina di Alseno at the restaurant “Da Giovanni”, a restaurant I like to go back.

With the aperitif, a rosé Spumante we had an introduction to the famous cheeses of Parmigiano Reggiano in different stages of aging and an introduction to the Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena, an irreplaceable delight.

Then came a fantastic diner accompanied with different wines.

Aperitif:           Spumante Rosé Bellabé from Enrico Loschi

With Diner:     Malvasia secca Frizzante Donna Enrica 2014 from Enrico Loschi

                        Monterosso Frizzante 2014 from Casa Benna

                        Gutturnio Classico Superiore 2012 from Casa Benna

For dessert:     Malvasia Passito Senzazioni D’Inverno 2011 from Marco Terzoni

Late night again but satisfied for another short night.

Thursday April 23th.

After a short night, also because we had to pack to leave the region and go back home, we moved to a cheese making factory of Grana Padano, very stunning and impressive.

In the short time we had left we visited an other winery on the way, Montesissa where we could taste and drink an aperitif Gutturnio Frizzante Figlio Mio 2013 with some appetizers.

Before lunch we made a quick visit to the local Piacenza paper Liberta who made an article about the event “Vento D’Expo” with a personal museum of paper-printing and where we received the best pictures of all time in a special map.

Then it was high time to go to lunch.

I was personally so pleased to go to one of my favorite restaurants in Italy and Piacenza, Antica Osteria del Teatro with chef  Filippo Chiappini Dattilo, one star Michelin restaurant I know since 1986 or ’87.

The beautiful wines we had with lunch came from Massimo & Fabio Torri, the Gutturnio Rosso Riserva 2011 and from Villa Tavernago the special wine Selezione Rosso Frassineto.

So far our 3 days of work in a beautiful region I passes many times but did not explore, a mistake to make I will put right and go back again.

Thanks to the organisation IRON3; Coldiretti; the different Consorzio’s; The Lady Mayor and Notables; The children an staff of the local school and probably many more.

Special thanks to the people who lead us thru this trip, the lovely lady hostess Eglè Sutinitè who made sure everyone was always there even in difficult moments; Dott. Fabio Tavazzani who lead us thru the different wines; and a special Lady I sadly forgot her name but is a walking encyclopedia with knowledge on the whole of the region, special monuments, places and history.

Thank you all and I hope to see you all again soon.

Timé