Welcome to Piedmont: the wine region Nick Ryan loves most

I have a serious love for these wines. I drink them as often as my finances and the generosity of others will allow.

Rocche di Castiglione, Giovanni Sordo Barolo

When navigating the convoluted, vine-stitched hills of Piedmont, I follow a Ridge. David Ridge – importer, educator, late-in-life social media star – is a leading authority on the wines of Piedmont; the intricate tapestry of vineyards running across this region at the foot of the Alps in northern Italy are as familiar to him as the Adelaide suburb he calls home.

This is a complex part of the wine world, with boundaries shaped by the quirks of Italian governance and vineyards delineated in a way that would baffle cartographers but makes perfect sense to those who scrub that dirt from their fingernails. It takes a degree of obsessiveness to absorb all this.

David Ridge

I, too, have a serious love for these wines. I drink them as often as my finances and the generosity of others will allow; I also visit when I can, and I’m able to find my way around in a hire car without using the GPS. But a recent tasting with Ridge reminded me I’m finger-painting while he’s putting up frescoes.

A proposed small tasting of new arrivals from the Sordo family, a renowned producer of Barolo (the classic red wine from Piedmont, made from nebbiolo grapes), typically blew out to multiple vintages and a flurry of information, a fraction of which made it to my notes. Tasting Barolo with Ridge is like sipping from a fire hydrant. The Sordo family are great winemakers whose canny land purchases over the years mean they now bottle wines from a wider range of “cru” vineyards than any other.

The winemaking is traditional: long maceration and fermentation, with maturation in very large oak casks. This allows the distinct nature of each vineyard to shine through a suite of wines that all share the sublime dichotomy of ethereal fragrance and tannin-led torque that makes Barolo so special. In a tasting of abundant highlights, these are but a few.

---

Sordo Barolo wines

2019 GIOVANNI SORDO BAROLO ‘RAVERA’

$160

Smells of rosebuds, cherry skins, blood oranges, rubbed rosemary and sage. Sinewy and taut on the palate, an exercise in fine dryness. Classic brick dust tannins; compression rather than grip.

14% alcohol, 95 points

2017 GIOVANNI SORDO BAROLO ‘MONVIGLIERO’

$160

Aromas of cherry liqueur, ecclesiastical smoke and expensive leather. It’s the bondage club on “clergy drinks free” night. The palate lightly lacquered – polish that cracks and allows you to move through the wine. Exquisite transparency. Anchored by tannins with the firm grip of stewed tea.

14.5% alcohol, 95 points

2017 GIOVANNI SORDO BAROLO ‘MONPRIVATO’

$320

A whole foreclosed florist of fading flowers on the nose; black cherries, crushed fennel seeds and spiced quinces too. Ironstone and leather on the palate, but also a freshness and suppleness. Beautifully fine, highly pixelated tannins. Exceptional.

14.5% alcohol, 96 points

Ridge has released a Barolo collection rarely seen, here: [e-mail]