Barbera like you've never had it before, the Ricossa Antica Casa Piemonte Barbera Appassimento.
100% Barbera from Piedmont Italy. This is the first official Piemonte DOC Barbera appassimento wine.
This review is brought to you by Ricossa Wines.
The Ricossa Antica Casa Piemonte Barbera Appassimento has an SRP of $25.99 and is available for as low as $19.95. 10,000 bottles produced for the US market.
From the winery:
This wine has a unique, ruby red color. The bouquet is rich with berry-like aromas, homemade fruit jam, and earthy notes. This wine has a soft sweet flavor balanced with the typical acidity of our beloved Barbera grape. The smooth tannins help give a pleasant structure and nice finish.
This wine goes well with aged Italian cheeses, gamey meat, and savory cuisine like Korean barbecue. Serve between 16-18C/60-64F. Fine for serving shortly after opening.
13.5% Alcohol
As we mentioned above, this wine represents a first for Piedmont -- it is the first official Piemonte DOC Barbera to be made in the appassimento method. The approval to create a wine in this style (the same as that used to make Amarone) was granted for the first time during the 2014 harvest. To make this wine Ricossa dried the harvested grapes for 4-6 weeks in small open cases. The resulting wine is also aged for 8 months in stainless steel tanks and another 2 months in bottle before being released.
The 2014 Ricossa Antica Casa Piemonte Barbera Appassimento begins with an excellent and enticing aroma full of sweet blackberries, plums, prunes, vanilla, some floral notes and a touch of chocolate. The wine tastes smooth, rich, round, soft and sweet with great depth of flavor and balance in its dark and red fruits. This is definitely a different type of Barbera but a really pleasing one at that and I love use of the appassimento method here. It ends quite long with more sweet fruit notes and nice touches of chocolate. It may be a first but I'm guessing this won't be the last Barbera from Piedmont made in this method, it's delicious!
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