Ormeasco di Pornassio DOC

Mountain Dolcetto, made in the Arroscia valley in the far west of Liguria, well inland from the coast the region is known for. The grape is called Ormeasco here, after Ormea over the pass in Piedmont, and the wine has one of the more revealing terroir descriptions in the whole register.

The Terroir The registered file is written like a soil survey, and it is worth following. The substrates are turbidites, partly sandstone in composition and partly calcareous-marly. Where the substrate is sandstone the texture is coarse loam with an acid to sub-acid reaction; where it is calcareous marl the texture is fine, with a neutral to sub-alkaline reaction. Two quite different soils, therefore, inside one small denomination. The vineyards concentrate between 400 and 500 metres; the mean temperature of the area is about 12°C; rainfall peaks in December at around 130 mm and bottoms out in July at an average of 25 mm.

The History The file records the presence of the vine in the Tanaro valley and along the south-western slopes of the Piedmontese mountains already in the Roman period. That sentence explains the wine: this is administratively Liguria and agriculturally Piedmont, on a pass route that carried salt up and wine down for two thousand years.

Grape Varieties Dolcetto alone, under the name Ormeasco. The file describes a bright ruby wine, persistent and vinous, dry and pleasant, medium-bodied, with a bitter vein — that closing note being the signature of the variety everywhere it grows. Minimum alcohol is 11 per cent. A Superiore is made, along with a liquoroso and a wine from dried grapes.

Sciac-trà The denomination’s other wine is a pale rosé with a name that sounds like nothing else in Italian. Sciac-trà is Ligurian dialect, generally read as schiacciare — to crush — and describes the method: the grapes are pressed and the juice run off the skins almost immediately. It is a serious rosé, sharper and more savoury than the Provençal style, and it is the local summer wine.

The Critical Take Ligurian Dolcetto at 500 metres is a different animal from the Piedmontese version: leaner, higher in acid, more herbal, with the bitter finish more pronounced and the plummy fruit dialled down. Whether that is better depends entirely on what you want the grape for — it is a poor sipping wine and an excellent one with food. The zone is small, remote and shrinking, and the wines are cheap for the amount of work the terraces require.

At the Table Ligurian mountain cooking rather than seaside: rabbit alla ligure, sugeli pasta, snails, wild boar, and the garlic of Vessalico, which grows in the same valley. Serve at 15–16°C, the Sciac-trà at 10–12°C.

Benchmark Producers Lupi at Pieve di Teco, the historic reference, and the Viticoltori Ingauni cooperative, which handles the largest share of the fruit.