24 Feb The anarchist loved by kings and popes is the noblest of Piedmontese wines
What is the noblest of Piedmontese wines? Everyone is ready to answer “Barolo”, right? Of course, the line of Germans who in the right season arrive in this part of Piedmont, between Barbaresco and Barolo reduced more to a “playground” than a town, to load their cars might make you think all this. But the true king of Piedmontese wines has a more ancient history, at least eight centuries from the Middle Ages to the tables of the Savoy. It is Grignolino, “anarchic and headstrong” according to Luigi Veronelli, the whitest of reds and the reddest of whites, loved by writers and popes, long confined to that limbo of the so-called “table wines”, mortified and snubbed, but which now finally knows its great revenge.
Why is it called that
Known in the Middle Ages as “Barbesino”, handed down in the chronicles of the friars and religious of Monferrato – from Casale to Asti, this is its territory -, it is said that it owes its name to the “grignole”, those seeds contained in the grapes, but there is a saying, in Asti, which is “grignare”, or to laugh: the laugh that is almost a sneer, that of a Franti, a rebel, anarchist and headstrong, therefore. A wine that is not made for the rhythms of consumerism, claimed the writer and director Mario Soldati.
Taken from TorinoCronaca of 01/03/23. Continue reading at:
https://torinocronaca.it/news/tendenze/303821/l-anarchico-amato-da-re-e-papi-e-il-piu-nobile-dei-vini-piemontesi.html