If there’s one thing which the winemakers of Carema like to talk about over dinner more than their pergola-trained vines, it’s football.
Despite the searing July heat, uncomfortable even at this point in the evening, the menu at La Marenda Sinoira is traditional mountain fodder. There is an abundance of butter, cheese and sweet chestnuts, the latter served both as a purée over beef carpaccio and whole with, of course, a side of butter. Delicious, but not for the faint-stomached.
The seasonality of Italian cooking is exaggerated by international onlookers, and that is particularly apparent when one considers the importance of preserved goods in mountainous regions such as Carema. Chestnuts won’t be ready for harvest until autumn (the Sagra della Castagna, or chestnut festival, of the nearby town of Nomaglio takes place in mid-October). They are preserved, often in syrup, so that they can be consumed throughout the year.
Wine might also historically be considered in this context. Back in the days when the terraced slopes of Carema were worked by man and donkey, wine provided vital calories throughout the year. At a winemaker dinner in the age of Fiat Pandas though, the bottles are there for enjoyment and curiosity rather than fuel.
Tasting wines in the cellars of their respective winemakers is useful for academic purposes, but the correct context for experiencing them is always with good food and agreeable company. The challenge at wine dinners is keeping track of what is in the glass and what ought to be. Spittoons aren’t the norm here, though no-one drinks to excess. A wine is tasted and the remainder is poured into what would otherwise be a water glass, and then it is on to the next bottle to be tried. Inevitably certain bottles disappear at the other end of the table, and in some cases you end up tasting the same wine multiple times by mistake.
It is an experience which sheds further light on the day’s tastings and offers hints of what to expect from those yet to be visited. Monte Maletto’s Vecchie Tonneau 2023 is starting to show that slight petrol touch that Gian Marco Viano had promised Erbaluce develops after a few years in bottle. It’s an excellent foil to the Waldorf-esque salad of celery, apple, walnuts and cheese, the lightest course of a feast of sturdy cuisine. The Canavese DOC Nebbiolo Broglina, 2024 vintage, from Kalamass marries bright fruit with an underlying saltiness to offer great promise ahead of tomorrow’s journey southwards to see winemaker Riccardo Boggio and the Serra Morenica of Ivrea.
Although you might expect the small number of ambitious winemakers producing wines in Carema (and Canavese and Caluso) to show a certain degree of professional animosity towards one another, this could not be further from the truth. They are all striving to help put their region on the map, and they know each other’s wines as they might a trusted friend.
The only hint of bad blood is due to their differing Serie A allegiances, with Gian Marco of Monte Maletto supporting Juventus while brothers Matteo and Michele Melfa of Sopravvento favour Inter. Sorpasso’s Vittorio Garda and Ferrando’s Simone Pozzo favour the “team of the Piemontese people”, and of myself, FC Torino. Boggio perhaps has the right idea by supporting no team in particular.
Fittingly, dinner coincides with the 20th anniversary of Italy’s World Cup Final triumph over France. Unfortunately we do not have any 2006s to mark the occasion with. It’s hardly a surprise given that most of the winemakers here have only been producing for a few years, and yet they carry themselves with the quiet confidence that normally comes with decades of experience.
We are still able to enjoy a rare taste of older vintages from this western side of Northern Piemonte. Luigi Ferrando e Figlio’s 1982 Carema is a wine which wears its four decades effortlessly, showing vibrancy but also plenty of dried flower and tobacco notes to make it worthwhile as an older Nebbiolo. It even holds its own with admirable aplomb against the sweet, starchy chestnuts. Somewhat wearier is a bottle of 1987 vintage Erbaluce di Caluso from Colombaio di Candia. Oxidised to the point where its nose resembles that of an Oloroso Sherry, or single malt whisky. Fortunately, the other, younger Erbaluces at the table are there to fly the flag for the variety.
The final course is the restaurant’s speciality: suet gris, a polenta generously/excessively enriched with cheese (usually Toma) and butter and flavoured with wild herbs. Salty, fatty and filling. I can see why it was a favourite of workers when the only way up to their vines was by foot, but on a sweltering summer evening after a day spent largely sat down I only manage a small portion for fear of not being able to get out of bed the next morning.
“Do you normally eat traditional cuisine like this?” I ask Gian Marco once we have finished our discussion about Juventus’ prospects for next season and as I begin digesting, ready for the ascent back up to the hotel.
“Only when we have guests,” is his reply.