Ruché di Castagnole Monferrato Vigneti e Cantine Enrico Morando, 2011
Lightly dusted with fresh, fine ground black pepper, and mouth-watering tart berry fruit just underneath, with the lean, focused fruit acidity providing structure without resorting to tannins which are light. There’s an explosion of fruit on the first sip, mingled with some intriguing herbal notes, almost but not quite like Provencal ‘garrigue’, hot and dusty and ever-so-slightly resinous, the perfume of rose petals and fragrant dried flowers, mixed in with a solid core of spiciness to add yet another taste and texture layer. Think marinated spiced sour cherries and you wouldn’t be far off.
The Ruché made a profound first impression, but became amazing when exposed to the foods, a wide-ranging array of Italian-Piedmontese pastas, rich with mushrooms and olive and herbs.
More than most wines, the Ruché has a curious ability to adapt its texture as well as its flavor to the food. Pillows of gnocchi, flat wide ribbons of chewy meaty pappardelle, delicate purses of spicy agnolotti---the Ruché handled them all, and fitted itself to all, with surpassing ease. It accompanied and accommodated even a firm herbed whitefish without any difficulty.
It is a chameleon of a red wine; lean, medium-bodied, tart, fruity, herbal, spicy, and most of all, precisely balanced in all its facets.
This is definitively one of the most “Italian” of wines: lean and mean, focused and intense. No gobs, no pillows of flavor, no raisination, no tricks to plump up the wine or jam up the fruit. If that’s what you like, go elsewhere; but if you want a wine made for table, made to go with delicate and hearty food, and is an absolute pleasure to drink: this is the one.