75. Wine History in Context: Alto Piemonte’s Revival and Valle d’Aosta’s Alpine Charm

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Hello friends, and welcome back to the Wine Educate Podcast. I’m your host, Joanne Close, and today we’re doing something a little different. This episode won’t be heavy on exam prep, but it will give you important context about Piedmont and its history through two fascinating regions: Alto Piemonte and Valle d’Aosta.

This topic is fresh on my mind because Jim and I were recently there this summer, and I’ll also be teaching a class on it in the shop this Tuesday (there are still a few spots left if you’re local).

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• The drive from Nizza Monferrato to Gattinara, just 72 miles and about an hour and 20 minutes, through the rice fields that produce 90 percent of Italy’s rice.

• My visit to Cantina Sociale di Gattinara, a historic co-op founded in 1908, and why this modest place holds such significance in the region’s story.

• The history of Alto Piemonte, which once had 40,000 hectares under vine and produced Nebbiolo wines more prized than Barolo and Barbaresco, before phylloxera, wars, and migration nearly wiped it out.

• The current landscape of Alto Piemonte, with Gattinara at 111 hectares and other appellations as small as 8 hectares, and the renewed investment from Barolo producers seeking cooler, higher-altitude vineyards.

• Nebbiolo, known locally as Spanna, how it got that name, the blending grapes historically used, and why so many producers now focus on 100 percent Nebbiolo wines.

• Valle d’Aosta, Italy’s smallest wine region at 469 hectares, a short but winding drive from Gattinara.

• The charm of the town of Aosta, its food shops, its folklore of dragons, the devil, and fairies, and how this mythology shows up in its architecture and even its wine labels.

• The unique position of Aosta as the last town before Mont Blanc, where both Italian and French appear on labels.

• The DOC structure and key grapes of the region, including Petit Rouge, Nebbiolo, and Prié Blanc, which reaches the highest vineyards in Europe at around 1200 meters.

This episode blends history, travel, and wine study in a way that helps place Piedmont into a fuller context.

If you are local, I would love for you to join me Tuesday at The Independent to taste through some of these wines. If you are not local, we offer wine classes year-round, so you can check our website for sessions that interest you.

Next week we return to the classics of wine law with Chianti, then Rioja and the Langhe.