This little gem is a bottle of Cieck Nebbiolo, from DOC Canavese in Piedmont Italy. The vintage is 2010. I picked it up when we visited the beautiful historic residence Vistaterra in 2017. They have a phenomenal bottle shop and this was the one bottle I treated myself to as my friends generously donated one of the wine bottle spaces in their suitcase on the flight home to me so I could bring something back. I have never felt quite as much like I have nailed opening a bottle of wine at the right time!

This wine has all of the characteristics you would expect from Nebbiolo – the grape that you perhaps mainly associate with the Barolo DOCG region. It is a medium deep garnet colour and the nose is full of ripe fruit. In fact, it looks much too light to have all of the pronounced smell that it does.

In the mouth it is soft and velvety. Any trace of astringent tannin has softened entirely to make the tannins so well integrated as to be barely perceptible here. Although considered not quite on a par with its now glamorous cousin, Barolo, the Canavese stands up well as a sub-20EUR bottle that has aged beautifully and is now perhaps at its peak. It is drenched in cherry, rose and raspberry notes which fill the mouth and the nose and leave one gasping with the beauty of the thing.

I can well imagine that this would accompany a rich Piemontese agnolotti in an unctuous sauce, and other typically punchy dishes of the region. 

But I will be enjoying this bottle on its own and delight in every mouthful over the course of a couple of nights. Thank goodness for my Avina winestopper for letting me drag this bottle out for as long as possible!

I purchased this wine at full retail price and decided to write a review on a whim because it’s so darned delicious.