Questo non è un Grignolino

A fluo yellow speck moved swiftly among the naked vines as Mario and I walked down Vigna San Pietro. The vineyard was hibernating and the quiet calm of winter was pierced only by the occasional commands shouted in Italian. Only one Arditi preferrred to work in bright yellow and it was Fabrizio, Mario's eldest brother. He was pruning the vines, and Mario and I were stopping by to say hi. I wondered if he would still remember me. I certainly remembered him and the crash course he gave me in Italian swear words racing back and forth between the tiny villages of Monferrato at the peak of harvest, not understanding why the Belgian importatrice wanted to work in the vineyards and the cantina for days on end.

It was January 2025 and I was back in Cella Monte to taste and blend the two tanks of Grignolino that had been resting since September. The cantina was cold and so were the samples we took from the tanks. I was a bit nervous because the wines smelled and tasted very muted, as if they too were covered by the icy winter morning fog hovering between the hills. Standing in front of the big whiteboard where Mario kept track of the chemical analyses of each tank, I realized we had made wines with very little volatile acidity, a good pH and moderate alcohol levels. All the ingredients of a great wine were there - I just could not yet perceive it in my glass.

We took two bottles back to the Cinque Quinti tasting room in the Arditi house - or better: castello - in the heart of Cella Monte. The castello had been in the family for centuries and it was underneath this building that Mario's ancestors had dug the "infernot", the underground winery and cellars. Next to the large open fire, we set up our blending station. To ensure an unbiased view, Mario had invited his cousin Davide, who was also a winemaker in Monferrato, who made his own Grignolino and whose opinions were as unfiltered as a Nova Radix wine.

By now, the two samples had fully opened up and I could hardly contain my enthusiasm when I put my nose deep in the glass and took my first sip. Cherries, red forest fruit and a mix of herbs jumped out of the glass, on the palate the tannins were present but soft, and a delicate meaty and peppery note lingered in the finish. "questo non è un Grignolino", Davide proclaimed, breaking the silence and my spirit. "It is good but this simply does not taste like what Grignolino is supposed to taste like." I could not believe it - this clearly was Grignolino. We had not overextracted, it was spontaneously fermented and had been left untouched since September. But then I realized that Mario and I had achieved exactly what we had set out to do: we had not engineered a wine to make it conform to convention.

"It is rare to have an importatrice visit us so soon after a previous visit," Fabrizio said with the pruning scissors in his hand. "questa non è una importatrice," I wanted to retort but before I could feel as misunderstood as Grignolino, Fabrizio gave me a hug and pointed to the sea of yellow flowers growing among the vines, "Analin, guarda tutta quella bellezza"! Yellow truly was his favorite color.