La Casaccia (Piedmont, Cella Monte) DOC Barbera, Freisa, and Grignolino Monfiorenza

GIOVANNI RAVA

Here is the nature of Italian wine for me. Lots of miss. Very few hits. And then when the hits come, they come in bunches. And one day early in 2017 I met this guy...

Giovanni Rava greeted me with a wide smile, buried under his scraggly beard, and pumped my hand vigorously. His English was pretty good, but he didn't think so, and we eventually lapsed into French. Giovanni and his wife are agronomists, having met in Turin during University, and eventually taking over her family's home and vineyard near Casale Monferrato. Their place, all of it--cellar, vineyards, house-- is simply fantastic.

Twenty years ago Giovanni and his wife Elena Bassignana acquired an 18th centuryvabandoned villa named La Casaccia (almost literally translated as "that shitty little house") and gradually restored the main building and brought back into production the impressive subterranean cellar excavated into the local volcanic rock. The cellar was soon equipped with a line of stainless steel tanks and a bottling unit, and the vineyard converted to organic farming.

And their wines...spot on. That first visit began at 10 am, and at 3:30 we still remained at the dining table, satiated with lunch, and lots of open (and empty) bottles on the table. Returning there this past July, tasting this time with Giovanni and Elena's daughter, Margherita, was much the same; a line up of wonderful wines, from the opening taste of their sparkling wine, through the crisp whites, and on down the range of reds as good as anything I've ever tasted in Piedmont