Rich and fruity, boasting black cherry, blackberry and a hint of black pepper. Firms up on the finish, staying balanced and moderately long. Drink now. 1,300 cases made, 300 cases imported.??–BS??Region: Italy / Piedmont / Dolcetto d'Alba Select to Add

The Elio Grasso 2021 Dolcetto d'Alba dei Grassi delivers monochrome aromas of black cherry that you recognize off the bat. This is a dark and rich red wine that only sees stainless steel. Dolcetto tends to go into a reductive phase, and vintner Gianluca Grasso works with micro-oxygenation to keep the bouquet open and expressive. It shows an inky purple appearance.

This wine had just been bottled when I tasted it, so I tasted it from vat (hence the range of scores). It is of a more meager color and has less structure than usual, as growing Dolcetto proved difficult in 2018. "We started off on the wrong foot," Gianluca Grasso tells me. Yields were down about 55%, and they had to do two treatments of the Dolcetto, which is a particularly difficult variety to grow in these organic vineyards, as opposed to Nebbiolo which did surprisingly well. As a result, this 2018 Dolcetto d'Alba dei Grassi is thin and has little heft. It is immediately approachable but definitely one of Elio Grasso's less important wines in this selection.

Gianluca Grasso tells me he became as strict as an Italian police man, a Carabinieri, when it came to leaf pulling in 2017. Vines needed as much shade as they could get in this scorching hot vintage, so he did not allow for any leaves to be thinned. Fruit for the 2017 Dolcetto d'Alba dei Grassi matured rigorously in the shade during the whole summer season. For Gianluca, this was the key to maintaining fruity intensity and freshness in this difficult vintage. Indeed, this wine is void of the jammy sensations of fruit confit and marmalade that you might expect given the record heat.

Perhaps more than any other wine from this celebrated estate, the 2016 Dolcetto d'Alba dei Grassi shows the deft handiwork of the Grasso family. Dolcetto is never an easy grape, but Elio and his son Gianluca produce consistent results year after year. This wine had been bottled shortly before I tasted it (a matter of hours). In fact, I could almost call it a barrel sample. No matter, because the wine showed the varietal pureness and fruity plumpness that I remember from past editions. It is clean, fruit-forward and full of nerve.