Italian Wine Regions - Piedmont

Where the Borbera river meets the Tanaro river, not far from Turin, Italy, the Piedmont wine making region can be found. Piedmont wines generally either come from the area of Alba or Asti. This entire, relatively secluded region by the Alps and Apennines is one of the main Italian wine growing regions.

With all of the fame the areas around Mediterranean gain for their perfect grape growing conditions, you might be surprised to find such a good growing climate so far away. But the placement of this region provides it with hot summers that are perfect for growing grapes that must have long hot summers to grow, such as Nebbiolo. In fact, these grapes are very high in tannin, which is important for producing a wonderful smell and acidic nature during wine production. There is even a strong hint of spice in these wines.

Barolo is one of the popular traditional grapes found here. The skins are soaked for 20 days before undergoing fermentation. Then they are soaked another 20 days after fermentation. The idea is to make the tannins come alive in order to produce a great wine.

The aging process will then take place for no less than 4 years. The aging storage of choice is a barrel made of oak. This helps improve the actions of the tannin and increase the acidic nature of the wine. The more it ages, the better Barolo gets.

Barbera is similar to Barolo, but with less intense tannins. It is sometimes confused with barbaresco, which is made of Nebbiolo and has less alcohol, thus requiring less time to age. Dolcetto is also similar to Barbera, but with less acid and more tannins and spice.

Improvements in wine making technique have led to the use of a type of oak barrel that adds some vanilla flavor.

The Asti area of Piedmont is known for its white wines. Moscato is the fragrant ingredient of choice. The version that doesn't sparkle is called Moscati d'Asti.

As wine production has been taking place for thousands of years in Piedmont, it has perfected itself into a premiere wine quality region. Surprisingly, this region is a relatively small growing area, yet the growers manage to produce eight billion bottles of wine annually. While most of these bottles of wine are quite expensive, shopping around will allow you to find good prices now and then on fine Piedmont wines that have been aged to perfection.