Charm for Sale

by Kermit Lynch

I don’t know about you, but at times I’m in the mood for black cherries, even though they may not be in season. So, what to do? Take, for example, these two 2015 Dolcettos. Take one, it’s yours! However, it will cost you a few bucks. A few, not many. The best things in life are not always free.

I see on Amazon that one can still purchase Victor Hazan’s very special, very handy book, Italian Wines. Here are some excerpts about Dolcetto:

Those who recognize in Dolcetto’s name the Latin root it shares with Italian, Spanish, French, and English words for sweet—dolce, dulce, douce, dulcet—may be puzzled to find it is a totally dry wine. Sweetness, however, is an appropriate term to describe the character, if not the taste, of Dolcetto. It is an intensely fruity, soft-bodied wine, low in acid, high in charm, one whose easy drinking qualities make it the most instantly attractive of Piedmont’s red wines.

The locals say that if you analyze a sample of their blood, half of it will turn out to be Dolcetto.

That Dolcetto should be paramount in the affections of people whose region produces Italy’s most important red wines is testimony to its substantial charms.

Parts of Dolcetto country are also in Barolo country, but when you sit down to eat with the family of a man who makes both wines, if you are more a friend than guest, it will be Dolcetto rather than Barolo that you’ll find on the table.

Welcome to 2015 and two Dolcettos as good as I’ve ever tasted. Enter the world of delicious, ripe, black cherry intensity. Breathe in deeply the amazing aroma. The flavors coat your taste buds! You who share my hunger for black cherries, don’t miss it. All the rest of you, you’re welcome to enjoy it, too.

Diano d’Alba, by the way, is a very special terroir in Piedmont expressly devoted to Dolcetto. It produces Piedmont’s most charming red wine. My advice: a little charm won’t do you no harm.

IL PALAZZOTTO

per bottle

per case

2015 Dolcetto di Diano d’Alba “Sörì Cristina” >  

$16.95

$183.06

2015 Dolcetto di Diano d’Alba  >
“Sörì Santa Lucia”

19.00

205.20

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