Davide’s rightly pleased at the quality of the Vigna Rionda fruit he’s harvesting this year; his second harvest since inheriting the vineyard from cousin Tommaso (Canale). Much work has been done to bring more life to the vineyard: propping the old vine ‘limbs’ off the ground using ‘crutches’ he designed in the cantina,  raising the canopy higher to increase its exposure to light (and hence photosynthesis), ploughing the soil between the rows to aerate it. The result is visible in the many different types of wild grasses now present. As you would hope the Nebbiolo fruit from Vigna Rionda in 2012 is both small and focussed, the flavours elegantly but tightly interwoven; a characteristic of the wine.

Another new Giovanni Rosso vineyard has just come on-stream, a 2.8ha plot planted higher up above Serralunga d’Alba, at 550 msl, in the village of Roddino. Here the nutrient poor terrain is composed of an intense blue marne and startlingly white soil that typifies this part of the Langhe (on the border with the Alta Langa, home to the hazlenuts). It’s Davide’s express intention to make Langhe Nebbiolo from this fruit (as it lies outside the Barolo zone). Judging by the beautifully vivid, cobalt blue Nebbiolo fruit that came in yesterday, the 2012 Langhe Nebbiolo Giovanni Rosso should be a wine to watch out for.