#12 PRIMA’s ’24 for 24’ Best Wines Of The Year

Wine Country: Italy

Wine Subregion: Piemonte

It was so difficult to choose between these two as they occupy the same place in our hearts as they do on our shelves.  Each also has its own allegiance with you.  So, we thought, hey, it’s our list.  If we want to choose TWO lovely Piemontese value whites, why not?  Though neither really need introductions here, we should at least point out the highlights of each, even though we’d encourage you to try them both.  We considers ourselves Arneis snobs, if such a thing were actually possible.  But we get to taste so many, and there are have gotten to be so many that are so, well, average, out there.  It’s wonderful to taste the best, though, and Correggia’s has been one of the benchmarks for the varieties since the late Matteo Correggia decided to concentrate on the grape now over thirty years ago.  We first tasted this 2022 with Matteo’s son, Giovanni, on a sunny patio overlooking the Alps surrounded by great friends and some platters of local cheese and meat, and it couldn’t have been a better wine at a better time!  Light, fresh and crisp, there is still a solid underpinning of serious minerality and oomph lurking underneath.  Trying it again recently (under more clinical conditions) I can say that the Correggia Arneis truly belongs on the short list of the best of the bunch.  On the fresher, crunchier side of the Arneis flavor and texture spectrum, yes, this is the ultimate in flexible, food friendly and really delicious northern Italian white!  My wife makes us keep a case on hand.  You should too! Serving suggestion (as tested in the backyard of the Rittmasters): make a salad of fresh crisp chopped celery and celery leaves, mix in a handful of fresh tarragon and small bites of a slightly salty-tangy fresh cheese like feta or ricotta salata.  Dress with fresh lemon juice, good olive oil and a bit of salt.  Easy, fresh and fun!  And GREAT with Correggia Arneis.

Created by a passing glacier, the amphitheater containing the hillside pergola-trained vineyards of the Caluso zone is perched right on the mountainous border between Piemonte and Valle d’Aosta. These vineyards seem to defy gravity, perilously clinging to terraces first built during Roman times.  It’s a stunning vista you almost have to see to believe.  This is the home to the local Erbaluce grape- a white cultivar that is, depending on who you ask, completely native to the Cavanese hills, brought by the Romans way back when, or a transmigrated version of the southern French grape Clairette that was planted here during the time of Charlemagne.  Regardless of which story you ascribe, Erbaluce has been turned into wine by the hearty natives of this region at least since the early 1600s and it loves the high altitude and fresh air of these alpine foothills.  It can accumulate a lot of sugar and be harvested later in the season without losing its native acidity making it a great grape not only for dry whites, but also for sparkling and for passito-styled dessert wines.  At Cieck, it is vinified as cool and clean as possible in order to preserve its alpine freshness and distinctive pithy, exuberant personality.  Like a breath of fresh mountain air, the wine has nicely expressed pear fruit with citrus, lantana and spice notes on a lighter frame that finishes with amazing minerality. What a fabulous wine for all the wonderful cheeses they produce out there in them snow-capped mountains.  It’s also great on its own.  People who try this, love it and it has become one of our most requested wines among our regulars.  Can’t choose between them?  Choose them both