Is Alba DOC the same as Barbera d’Alba?

Barbera d’Alba, Dolcetto d’Alba and Nebbiolo d’Alba are all well-known Piedmontese DOCs. The former two are important as they represent Barbera and Dolcetto in and around Barolo and Barbaresco, even if there are also specialist DOCGs in this area for Dolcetto. By contrast, Alba DOC is an entirely separate DOC.

The reasons you have never heard of it are two-fold. It is a fairly recent development (2010) but, mainly, because it is minuscule in terms of the vineyard devoted to it and in terms of production. The total vineyard area for this wine has averaged 2.3 hectares per year in the last three years. For the sake of comparison, Nebbiolo d’Alba, the smallest of the three other ‘Alba’ DOCs, averaged 541 ha. So, if you have never heard of Alba DOC, that is hardly surprising.

Alba DOC, the basics

Alba DOC is a wine that has to be made from grapes grown within the defined Alba area. However, this is quite a large area including the Langhe, Dogliani, Roero and stretching across from Bra to the western edge of the Cuneo province. The wine must be made from Nebbiolo (70–85%) and Barbera (15–30%). The producer may use up to 5% of other authorised red grape varieties. This is very unusual in Piemonte as virtually all other DOC(G)s are basically monovarietal. Both Alba DOC wines and Alba DOC Riserva have a yield limit of 56 hL/ha. The former can only be released after 17 months, the latter after 23 months. The former has to be aged in oak (not just ‘wood’) for a minimum of 9 months. The latter must remain in oak for a minimum of 12 months.

Alba DOC, ambitious regulations

The regulations for Alba DOC set high standards. I had assumed that this DOC was created to make simpler, everyday wines, to reflect the older tradition of blending varieties. But this is not the case. The low maximum yield (the same as for Barolo no less) and the long minimum ageing time indicate that the aim is for high-quality wines. The examples I tasted certainly reflected that. And the producers were clear that the wines can be aged further in the bottle.

Incidentally, some also said that the grapes must be grown, harvested and vinified together, a true field blend. This could be a challenge as Barbera can ripen several weeks before Nebbiolo. But this is stipulation is not stated in the disciplinare, the legally-binding rules. However, Parusso (see below) told me that they do make it in this way. The history here is that it was traditional to have a few Barbera plants at the end of rows of Nebbiolo. As a result, the wine was called taglio Albese, the Alba blend. The practice was partly an insurance policy as later ripening Nebbiolo can be ruined by late-season rain. Barbera also contributed colour and fruit to the very pale and austere Nebbiolos of the past. And let’s not forget that until very recently Gaja used small percentages of Barbera in some of their great Nebbiolo wines, declassifying them to Langhe DOC.

Alba DOC: three producers

According to the register, 10 producers make or made this wine. The list includes the famous Barolo names Parusso, Marchesi di Barolo (first vintage 2021, a promising wine tasted in cask only) and Renatto Ratti (though I have never seen a bottle of this). Cascina del Pozzo in the Roero makes a very good example. It is part of its extensive line-up of wines, furthest to the right in the picture above. The wine used to be sold as Langhe Rosso but has now been upgraded to Alba DOC. The grapes for the current vintages came from one vineyard, Bricco Serra with 50–70-year-old vines. The wine was a true field blend in the past. However, today the two varieties are picked at optimum ripeness and vinified separately and then blended. The ageing is one year in tonneaux, one-quarter new.

Parusso in Monforte d’Alba, makers of top, barrique-aged Barolo, have also shown a real enthusiasm for this wine. They kindly put on a tasting of all the available vintages for me: 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. They first rented and then bought a vineyard in Santa Rosalia, on the edge of Alba, and have launched a separate brand for this wine, Vegliamonte. In Italian, this means ‘see the mountain’ as on clear days you can indeed see the Alps. In terms of quality, the wines demonstrate the point of this DOC. After 15 months in French oak barriques, mainly new, and a total of four years of ageing, the fruit really begins to express itself. The wines have the fine aromas of Nebbiolo (rose, red and black fruit, balsam) but are more rounded and less austere than pure Nebbiolo wines. The six-year-old also showed the potential to age with leather and tobacco on the nose over the fruit and still had youthful tannins that were beginning to resolve.

Until this tasting, I was something of an Alba-DOC-sceptic. I still don’t like the name because of the confusion with Barbera d’Alba and other ‘d’Alba’ denominations. But, while the take-up has been tiny, the DOC allows wines of real quality and some distinctiveness to be made.