SevenFifty Daily: The Impact of Own-Rooted Vines on Wine – Featuring Elvio Cogno
SevenFiftyDaily’s Kevin Day starts 2019 with an insightful look at a handful of vineyards throughout the winegrowing world–including Elvio Cogno’s Pre-Phylloxera Barbera– where ungrafted, pre-phylloxera vines are still producing unique, high quality wines.
“Yet pockets of ungrafted vines (often referred to as own-rooted vines) still exist in Europe, usually because of a convergence of terroir and luck.”
“The notable Barolo producer Elvio Cogno tends a small vineyard of centenarian Barbera vines that thrive on an ancient root structure that has somehow survived.”
“It is definitely an unusual Barbera,” says Valter Fissore, the winemaker and co-owner of the Elvio Cogno estate. He adds with a bit of pride that this Barbera is tricky to identify in a blind tasting because of its distinctive sweet spice and a strong graphite note on the back palate. “But it’s difficult to know which one of the vineyard’s characteristics [high altitude, cold climate, sandy soil, or rootstock is responsible for this unique taste,” he says. “It’s probably the combination of all of them.”
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