A metodo classico from pure Nebbiolo, made by saignée and given twenty-four months on the lees. Rare: the grape of Barolo and Barbaresco here yields a rosé with red fruit, brioche and tannic grip.
Pale coral pink with a fine, steady mousse. The nose offers strawberry and raspberry, behind them the brioche of two years on the lees and a savoury, faintly rose-scented turn that unmistakably recalls Nebbiolo. The palate is dry and lively: the red fruit is carried by the bubble without turning sweet, and halfway through a saline minerality arrives that pushes the wine towards food. A light tannic grip lingers on the dry finish, making this rosé considerably firmer than its pale colour promises. Serve at 7 to 9 degrees. At the table it handles considerably more than an aperitif asks of it.
Cantina Francone has worked out of Neive, in the heart of Barbaresco, since 1892. Five generations on, Marco and Fabrizio Francone run the family estate, whose reputation rests above all on the Gallina hill: a south-facing cru listed on Renato Ratti's historic map of Barbaresco crus.
For this rosé the Nebbiolo is picked at the end of August, weeks earlier than for a Barbaresco, with higher acidity and lower sugars. That is a deliberate choice, not the salvage of a difficult year.
The wine is made by the saignée method: after a brief maceration on the skins part of the must is drawn off, which is where the pale colour and the trace of tannin come from. Fermentation runs at 16 degrees, and a fifth of the wine matures in oak barrels.
The second fermentation follows in the spring after harvest, after which the bottle rests twenty-four months on the lees. The result could come from no region but Piedmont.
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