James Bercovici - The Big Red Wine Company

 Two vintages of Fabrizio Battaglino ' s Nebbiolo d'Alba 'Para'di' (OK, so that doesn't translate as 'Paradise' but allow me some licence), both very good years - 2019 and (on paper, even better) 2020. Young but this is his first port of call for Nebbiolo so it's meant to be drunk young (albeit not necessarily this young). Are they drinking well now and what, if anything, distinguishes them from each other? In time honoured fashion, 2020 first, just because it's younger. It's got quite big fruit for a Nebbiolo grown in the Roero hills but, then, you only have to try Giacosa's Valmaggiore from the hill next door to see that's not uncommon or a bad thing. There's power here. It seems to deserve a higher appellation status - think of this as the Piedmontese equivalent of a Côtes du Rhône; this is far more interesting than all but a handful of wines from that area. 2020 was a superb vintage though and this isn't bucking the trend....

I have been perfecting (I hope) my curing skills in the hope that I will soon be able to start making and selling salumi (that's Italian charcuterie although some may be more French than Italian, of course). I seem to be getting there. Shortly before Christmas - for some reason, at my busiest time of the year, I always need an additional project. Probably, if I don't keep going, I'll simply stop altogether - I cured a Coppa (the muscle that runs from the neck to the loin), a Lonzo (the loin) and made various salami from a basic recipe with additions: some with olives, some simply with black pepper and, best of all, a Fenocchiona which has lots of garlic and fennel. The Lonzo was cold smoked for a couple of hours. Here are the results: My youngest son and I demolished this in a matter of minutes. He didn't get any wine to go with it but I did: Fabrizio Battaglino 's Roero Riserva 2015 : just about reaching perfection, this has elegant Nebbiolo character with some sup...

At last, after much deliberation (make that "tasting"), I have narrowed down the selection of wines from Nada Giuseppe (Barbaresco), Fabrizio Battaglino (Roero), Filippo Gallino (Roero), Grasso Fratelli (Barbaresco) and Crissante Alessandria (Barolo) to just three or four wines from each. The range of wines is quite something: some unusual but beguiling whites, a gutsy Dolcetto, Barbera ranging from easy, everyday drinking to serious, dinner party wine, super ripe Nebbiolo to classic Barolo (not forgetting the Barbaresco and Roero incarnations, of course) and two low-alcohol, sweet wines, one red, one white. Not bad for fewer than 20 wines! I really do think all these wines are stunningly good - normally I am no fan of Dolcetto but Enrico Nada turns out a beefy version that really works for me. However, the highlight of the range (for me) this year is the 2009 Barbaresco "Casot" which is so forward, I have already worked my way through several bottles. ...

Wednesday evening saw my last full estate visit - the rest of the time in Italy was more or less holiday (although a trip to Acqui Terme necessitated a visit to the Enoteca Regionale to familiarise myself better with the local Barbera di Monferrato wines amongst others). We got a bit lost in Canale - should you ever visit, look for signs to Valle Pozzo and you'll be OK. When you arrive at Filippo Gallino , there is the feeling of the Deep South - a distressed row of houses with balconies overlooking a yard where the children amuse themselves by throwing up bottle tops and seeing where they land. It seems all the money is spent on the cantina  and all the family must live here, several generations together. Laura had driven off to look for us but returned just as we were trying out our Italian on her sister. Little English is spoken here except by Laura's husband Guglielmo who doesn't work for the family (except to help out with hapless English people like us). We went i...

Over to Roero on Monday evening, the other side of the Tanaro river so no longer in the Langhe. This is a region which has been overlooked by consumers hunting down the more famous wines of Barolo and Barbaresco but here there are Nebbiolo wines not to be ignored. At a lunch in London back in February, I tasted through thirty or so wines from this area and was pleased to note that the one that stood out was one of Fabrizio's which I was due to re-taste - properly - with Fabrizio Battaglino at his family's house. We started off with the white wine, a Roero Arneis 2011 . Fabrizio does not want to have anything to do with non-native grapes which is the right choice for him although it may give him something of an uphill struggle when it comes to marketing such wines. Thirty years or so ago, there were few Arneis wines produced; rather, it was used to soften the Nebbiolo, much in the same way as Viognier is used in Cote Rotie. Now there are a good number of these wines around. T...