Ruchè and Grignolino, the Hidden Gems of Monferrato

grignolino is the flagship of Hic et nunc winery. Photo courtesy hic et nunc

Raise your hand if you’ve heard of ruchè or grignolino. No one? That’s not surprising, because those grapes are pretty obscure.

Do yourself a favor and try both. Though they’re both native to Piedmont’s Monferrato region, the similarity ends there. Grignolino makes a wine that’s very pale in color, almost like a copper-tinged rosé, but don’t let that fool you; it packs a tannic punch. That’s due to the fact that it contains three or four times the seeds compared to other grapes, and seeds are tannin strongholds. Grignolino has delicate aromas that veer towards red fruit of the woods, like strawberry and red raspberry, as well as white pepper notes. I loved it at first sip. Chefs love it too because it doesn’t compete with the food. It’s a dry and clean dinner companion, with just enough tannic astringency to keep it interesting.

“Obscurity wasn’t always the case for grignolino, which was the everyday wine of King Carlo Alberto of Piedmont.”

I love ruchè equally, but for different reasons. Whereas grignolino is lightly scented, ruchè packs a punch. It’s highly aromatic (which I adore) showing floral scents of violet and rose mixed in with berry and spice. It’s a pretty ruby-violet color, and there’s tannic potential here as well.

Obscurity wasn’t always the case for these wines — for grignolino at least, which was the everyday wine of Carlo Alberto, King of Piedmont in the early 19th century. In a 1877 treatise, Giorgio Gallesio wrote, “[Grignolino] is the grape that gives the best chance to make wines in the ‘French style’ ” — meaning aged in wood barrels. (Today, there are two competing styles: one is done entirely in stainless steel to emphasize the fruit; the other is matured in wood, as done historically.) And two centuries earlier, the Duke of Mantua, Ferdinando Gonzaga, would send his servants up to Monferrato to fetch his regular supply of grignolino.

Ruchè is a bit more obscure. We know it originates from Castagnole Monferrato and was forgotten for a long time. Its revival in the 1960s was led by the town’s village priest, named Don Giacomo Caudo, who was also a winegrower. It took a while, but the revival worked. In 1988, there were just 10 hectares planted. By 2016, there were 150. That’s still quite small in the scheme of things. Fortunately ruchè grows well, managing in spots that even the workhorse barbera can’t ripen. Originally, families drank barbera and grignolino for everyday and kept ruchè for special occasions, possibly because of that hint of aromatic sweetness or because of its aging potential.

On a trip in November sponsored by the Consorzio Barbera d’Asti e Vini del Monferrato, I visited two new wineries that specialize in these grapes.

Hic et Nunc

In the heart of grignolino’s ancient turf, you’ll find Hic et Nunc (‘here and now’ in Latin). When the winery was conceived almost 10 years ago, the decision was made to focus exclusively on native grapes and to make only monovarietal wines. Though barbera is their largest production, grignolino is their flagship.

General manager Stefano Gervasoni

“Here we are in the land of grignolino,” general manager Stefano Gervasoni explains. The winery is in view of Vignale Monferrato, a medieval village so named because vines have been here since the 1200s. (Vigna means vineyard.)

The Hic et Nunc winery and resort was built from scratch on land purchased from a second-generation grape grower, who remains to this day to manage the vineyards, which he knows by heart. The purchase was made in 2012 by Massimo Rosolen, who owns an HR firm in Lombardy. He started building the cellar in 2018 and finished in 2020.

The winery was designed with visitors in mind. The tasting room overlooks vineyards on one side and production facilities on the other. “The beginning and end of process,” says Gervasoni. People can peer into the barrel room through floor-to-ceiling windows from the floor above, and they offer four different tasting experiences to visitors.

Hic et Nunc’s tasting room

In 2016, they bottled their first three wines in a leased facility. Now they have six wines and three grappas. Two of the wines are grignolino. The first is a rare sparkling grignolino called Mète. It’s a Charmat-method Brut rosé, which is fresh and easy, with pleasing raspberry aromas. It’s a wonder more folks don’t do a Brut grignolino — except for those pesky seeds that you have to separate out before fermentation and the costly autoclave tanks needed for sparklers. So yeah, it’s rare.

Their still grignolino, called AltroMondo, has the grape’s characteristic pale color and astringency. This grignolino is done in stainless steel, which underscores the red-berry fruit and spice. Gervasoni explained that grignolino dominated vineyards in this region until the 1960s, outnumbering even barbera, but then the ratio flipped for the simple reason that barbera was easier to grow and vinify. From being a wine of kings, “grignolino became a cheap wine,” says Gervasoni, “because farmers grew it at the bottom on the hill in the poorest soil. It lost its dignity.”

Thankfully it’s seen a revival in the last decade as consumers have become more adventurous and seek out indigenous grapes — no matter how obscure — and wineries like Hic et Nuc stay faithful to the native grapes.

Prediomagno

Giovanni, Eduardo, and Emanuela Novella of Prediomagno

Ruchè is the thing at Prediomagno. This is another brand new winery, founded by a family from Milan who worked in the chemical industry. In 2016, Emanuela and Giovanni Novella bought a 19th century villa overlooked by the crenellated castle in Montemagno, as well as some abandoned vineyards. They wanted to create something scratch, rather than buy as existing winery. And so they did, excavating a state-of-the-art cellar beside the old villa. They hired Riccardo Cotarella as their consulting enologist to get things started. The winery was ready in 2018, which was also their first vintage of ruchè.

The 1907 cellar

Of the winery’s 10 labels, there are four different interpretations of ruchè. Their flagship Ruchè di Castagnole Monferrato is done in stainless steel tanks to preserve the perfumes, suggestive of ripe red fruit and rose petals. For Ruchè Nisus, they let a portion of the grapes hang on the vine for another month so they become partly shriveled, concentrating the sugars. As a result, this wine has more of a strawberry jam impression. They also a have a ruchè rosé, called Neonà (which I didn’t get to taste). Finally, there’s a charming, fruit-of-the-woods-scented Brut Rosé. “We are the only ones to produce a Brut Charmat based on 100 percent ruchè,” says son Eduardo, who studied business and helps his parents with marketing and communication.

Speaking of which, Prediomagno gets its name from the Latin praedium, meaning farm or estate, plus magno or large. The name also echoes the nearby town of Montemagno. Their branding plays with the tradition of falconry, which was big in this area in the past. The logo is a stylized falcon, and each wine has a different feather design on its label based on various types of falcons.

Keep an eye out for both wineries. But if you spot any grignolino or ruchè in your wine shop, promise me you’ll give it a try.

Prediomagno’s new cellar was built underground, beneath the 19th C. villa