Wine Travels - Cinque Terre
In its truest expression, wine is the culmination of all of the elements that characterize a place. You can memorize maps and study books scrupulously but nothing will ever replace the fundamental experience of observing the place itself. Venturing through a vineyard provides invaluable insights that simply cannot be provided solely by book knowledge. While this is certainly true of any great wine regions on the planet, it became ever more apparent to me during my last trip to the Cinque Terre.
It would be impossible not to be astonished by the herculean effort put in place by vine growers in this forbidding environment as they take the risk to work precipitous cliffs with the prospect of microscopic yields. Planting grapes, or any other culture for that matter, in the gravity-defying vertical ridges emerging from the Mediterranean, seems a foolish endeavor.
It would also be equally impossible not to expect that such a peculiar place would impart unique traits to the wine. As if gifted with some kind of supernatural power, the vines cling to the impervious terraces of sandstone rock, held in place by frail retaining walls, exposed to the elements and mercilessly battered by the sea breeze that confers an unmistakable saline note to the wine.
My first encounter with the delicious wines produced by the capable hands of Heydi Bonanini of Azienda Agricola Possa happened by chance in a small wine bar in Vernazza. It was a pristine early September day and a bottle of Possa’s Cinque Terre Bianco DOC proved to be the perfect antidote to the relentless afternoon sun. The obligatory food choice to go with this blend of Bosco and Albarola was a plate of acciughe di Monterosso soaked in a fragrant, intensely green hued, Ligurian olive oil. If there will ever be a Unesco World Heritage designation for wine and food pairings, this one should be on it!
Vine cultivation and winemaking in the area have ancient roots – Pliny the Elder mentions the wines from the area in his Naturalis Historiae – but the years following the end of the Second World War are the ones witnessing the greatest expansion of the regional wine industry only to see it plummet in the last decade of the 20th century when the vineyards were abandoned and nature reclaimed much of the land once dominated by the cultivation of the grape vine.
The bleak trend of the last decades is once again inverting thanks to a handful of courageous growers that are willing to bet on the potential of this singular territory. The wines made by the likes of Azienda Agricola Possa are a testament to the fact that a silent revolution is happening and the quality has never been better. Wines from this corner of the world will unabashedly showcase their saline vein: a quick swirl of the glass and a plunge of your nose will reveal the unmistakable scent of sea mist, while their briny traits will make your palate tingle and provide an endless bracing sensation.
Stefano Zanoncello