Dolcetto d’Asti DOC: the fruit of the southern hills

The area described by the consortium includes twenty-four municipalities south of Asti. You can use it for a first route Nizza Monferrato as a reference and continue towards Castel Boglione and Mombaruzzo. The visit allows you to observe countries and countryside in a part of the Astigiano that dialogues with other areas of wine, through roads and continuous hills.

The landscape invites you to move for small stages. A walk in the centre of Mombaruzzo and a stop along the link with Castel Boglione allow to alternate the size of the village to that of the crops. The houses, the farms and the land tell a inhabited and worked territory. Dolcetto enters this plot as one of the grapes that give variety to local productions.

The Dolcetto is a Piedmont variety spread in several areas of the region. The name of the vine accompanies dry wines, and the identity of individual denominations arises from its encounter with different territories. The Astigian version is a useful stage to understand this geography: the grapes remain recognizable, while the place and choices of wine make form to interpretation.

The tradition of daily wine helps to understand the relationship of Dolcetto with the table. The bottle accompanies a meal and conversation, entering the life of countries through convivial use. The qualitative research can deepen this familiarity: the care of the vineyard and the work in the cellar allow to value the fruit and build a balance able to leave a precise memory.

The consortium describes a ruby color with possible purple reflections, red fruit scents and cherry recalls. In the sip, a mandorlato finish offers a stretch to follow carefully. These indications are a trace for tasting: first the fruit, then the consistency and finally the feeling that remains after drinking. Every bottle finds a balance right inside this picture.

The natural acidity contained in the vine contributes to a drink other than that of Barbera. The comparison makes Dolcetto's personality more legible, especially when the bottles accompany the same dish. There is also a superior type, linked to a longer refinement path. Tasting it next to a younger wine allows you to observe the relationship between immediacy of fruit and development over time.

Appetizers, cold meats, fresh and medium-sized cheeses offer opportunities to get to know this red. The meal can follow the same rhythm of the visit: a succession of small discoveries, with the glass that accompanies different flavors. The mandorlato finish can become a reference to be found between one pairing and the other, making the taste more attentive and personal.

Continue with the Ovada Dolcetto to know the same grapes in another territory, or return to Barbera d’Asti to explore two reds of the Asian hills. The wine allows to choose the next step of the journey: follow a vine beyond the landscape visited or deepen the variety that already lives in its vineyards.

Between Nice and Mombaruzzo leaves room for the stops in the towns. The wine route becomes more meaningful when the hills preserve the names of the countries, and the countries return to being part of the countryside observed along the road.