Manzone Langhe Rossese Bianco Rosserto 2018

The Manzone family has been farming lands in the Monforte d’Alba for nearly a century. Best known for their amazing cru Barolos, this rossese bianco produces an extremely rare and highly prized white wine that almost never leaves the Langhe. Thanks to over a decade of importing their wines directly, they gave us unprecedented access to this unicorn. Piemonte and First Bottle – the only places on earth to find this beauty!

Somms, wine geeks, and insatiably curious rare grape hunters, this one is for you! $19.95 to have your wine world rocked to its very core?!?! We’d call that a bargain, to put it mildly. There’s no beating around the bush; we absolutely love this wine. Texturally rich and waxy, ripping acidity, salty minerality, exotic florals, citrus notes, stone fruits, ginger, and melon...and...AND! Seriously, this just goes on forever, and each new sip or extra minute in the glass seems to reveal something new and beguiling. You could spend hours on a single glass...if it weren’t so damn fresh, bright, and delicious. This is a must-have.

The rossese bianco de Langhe grape traces its roots back to eastern Liguria, along the postcard-picturesque coast of Cinque Terre. The name “rossese” is commonly used across a great number of Italian varieties, so there is often confusion amongst the varieties that, in fact, share little to no common ancestry. Some 200 years ago, the grape made a home in the Monforte and Roddino villages of the Langhe where only a handful of producers still make it today. The Manzone family saved the local presence from becoming extinct when they rescued clippings and propagated a vineyard back in 1982. While long prized for its high-quality wines, the very small berries, and lower yields allowed the rise of more popular grapes like vermentino to assert dominance in the region. It took the Manzone family the better part of three decades working with the University of Torino to get this grape verified and officially added to the Langhe DOC in 2011.

This exceptional and unique wine hails from Manzone’s prized Castelletto cru vineyard, in the Monforte d'Alba municipality. The grapes ripen late in the season, from late September to early October when the grapes have turned from a deep gold to a pale pink. The grapes undergo a brief maceration, providing weight, color, and a small nuance of phenolic bitterness (i.e., tannins) to the finished wine, before aging for a year in large oak casks. Settling and blending occur in stainless steel before bottling a scant few thousand bottles of wine. Some truly cool stuff that is going to blow your mind the second you taste it and continue to thrill for the next decade! While it lasts!

PAIRING IDEAS: This might be the best ever wine to have with a Piemontese classic - Vitello Tonnato - basically poached veal with a tuna dressing. This is Piedmont’s take on surf and turf, and perfect for large gatherings.