Vine Path Blog 2/21: Poderi Cellario

Poderi Cellario

Vine Path 2/21

Fauto in the vineyard.

If you’ve lived in New England for a long time you might agree with me when I say that February is the most extreme and chilling month of the year. With an impending cold front on it’s way, it’s looking like we might be spending even more time at home, which means it’s time to cozy up and lean into our comforts. That’s why we’ve decided to make this month a big one with five different bottlings from one of the Langhe’s most novel wineries, Poderi Cellario.

Faustino and Cinzia Cellario.

This 3rd generation winery is currently helmed by partners Fausto and Cinzia Cellario, who’ve taken their family’s sprawling 30 hectare estate in the village of Carru and transformed it into one of the most dynamic wineries in the whole Langhe. Spread out into five distinctive vineyard sites, the Cellario’s farm hosts a wide array of native Piedmontese varietals with Dolcetto being the grape the family is most proud of. This month we’re excited to get to show off the lip-smackingly delicious wines of Poderi Cellario in all their diverse glory

Poderi Cellario E Bianco

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What better place to start than with E Bianco, the Cellario’s entry level white bottling. Always presented in a liter, this wine is meant to be immediately enjoyable and easy to delight in. It’s a blend of Arneis and Moscato, two varietals with a long history in the Langhe, aged in stainless steel. E Bianco, like all of the wines at Cellario, is made from hand harvested, organic grapes and fermented with native yeast. The family is committed to low input winemaking both in the vineyard and in the cellar. Their expert hands help make their wines clean, defined, and expressive without having to resort to using a slew of additives and preservatives.

Poderi Cellario Langhe Favorita

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Favorita, a local relative of the grape Vermentino, is an ancient but underappreciated wine in the Langhe. Though it is a late ripening grape, it always tends to maintain high levels of acidity which make the wines riper, more rich in tropical and stone fruit notes, while keeping the finish crisp and clean. I’ve always been in love with Favorita. It’s an immediately pleasurable kind of wine that keeps you coming back to the glass. It’s the kind of wine you tend to drink too fast!

Poderi Cellario E Rosso

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E Rosso is always 100% Barbera and is part of the same series as the E Bianco. Like the Bianco, the Rosso is all about early drinking and satisfaction. Barbera, generally speaking, tends to be this way. It’s a low tannin, high acid varietal so in most expressions of the grape the wines are surprisingly easy drinking for a Italian reds, which tend to skew towards high tannin profiles and more structure. This Barbera expression is more juicy and giving, but still with enough savory, and leafy notes to keep the experience interesting. If you need a burger or pizza wine, this is it.

Poderi Cellario Il Giovanotto

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The idea behind Il Giovanotto is what makes this producer so fun to follow. Right here we have a liter bottle of whole-cluster fermented Dolcetto that’s semi-carbonic. This is basically Dolcetto done like Beaujolais and it’s delicious. Bright, tart, aromatic, light, and refreshing, this wine does will with a slight chill. An honest ‘glou-glou’ wine if I do say so myself!

Poderi Cellario Dogliani ‘San Luigi’

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Now we come to one of the wines that the family is most proud of, their ‘San Luigi’ Dolcetto from Dogliani. In the Langhe there are few DOCGs for Dolcetto. Among them is the village of Dogliani, which in my assessment is the grand cru of Docletto. Structurally, Dolcetto is the opposite of Barbera, it tends to skew towards higher tannin and lower acid. This can be a difficult thing to balance in a wine since high acid tends to keep a high tannin wine refreshing. The trick is to harvest at just the right time to preserve that balance and then to not over work the grape in the cellar. Cellario’s approach to this wine respects both of those axioms and they take it a step further by using concrete tanks instead of oak vats. The resulting wine is a beautiful expression of Dolcetto and a good argument for the elevation of this grape’s reputation.

The Langhe in all its glory.