Enoteca Bisson 2021 Ciliegiolo, Golfo del Tigullio DOC

Item Number: 17624

UPC: None

Country: Italy
Region: Liguria
Sub Region: Liguria
Appellation/AVA: Golfo del Tigullio DOC
Estate Grown Wine: Yes
Vintage: 2021
Grape(s): 100% Ciliegiolo
Type: Wine - Red
Bottle Size: 750 ml
Pack: 12
Closure: Cork
Alc by Vol(%): 12
Viticulture: Practicing Biodynamic
Soil Type: Clay, sand and gravel

Tasting Notes: A pure and pert cherry bomb, the Ciliegiolo grape never yields much color, but handled the way Pierluigi handles it, Ciliegiolo achieves unapologetic scrumptiousness. Receiving a brief four-to-five-day maceration, Bisson’s Ciliegiolo embraces rather than attempts to mask its inherent lightness, falling somewhere between a rosé and a light red. (All too often, rosé these days seeks that commercialized ultra-light color at all costs—using all sorts of cellar manipulation, and not even attempting to locate a sweet spot of extraction that balances friendliness and vinosity.) What Pierluigi has created here is a wine that is both easygoing and expressive, juicy and red-fruited yet absent of intrusive structure. In its brightness and saltiness, in its range of application and its profound food friendliness, the 2020 Bisson Ciliegiolo is very much a Ligurian wine.

Farming Notes: Limited treatments, pursuant to Law 1078, are used; the management is similar to biodynamic farming.

Terroir Notes: Liguria produces scant quantities of wine that are dispensed of, in large part, by tourists who flock there to partake in the gorgeousness of its seaside towns. Among all of Italy’s viticulture regions, only the Valle d’Aosta produces less volume. Vines here cling to super steep limestone slopes and vie for space with the region’s ubiquitous olive trees (which outnumber grapevines five to one), artichokes, aromatic herbs, and wild mushrooms. They plunge deeply into rocky, impoverished soils, often on terraces (built by the Ligurian tribes in ancient times), aimed at the sun in worshipful fashion. These are vines that guzzle Mediterranean sunlight and bathe constantly in sea breezes, and the wines are easily among the most viscerally terroir-expressive white wines in all of Italy.

Pairing Notes: Fresh seafood, of course, but too often Mediterranean wine is typecast as a fish partner with severely limited range elsewhere. What the best Ligurian wines want so desperately, in fact, are green things—pesto, after all, is one of the region’s most widely beloved native dishes, and there are herbs growing everywhere which always find their way into the food. Fresh greens, sautéed greens, charred greens, heavily adorned greens; all will achieve synergistic nirvana with Bisson’s vivacious offering.

Featured in Punch.com as an "Essential Rosé for Right Now"
"It’s easy to be enchanted by the wines of Liguria. [Bisson winemaker] Pierluigi Lugano makes a dry and brilliantly red rosato from the indigenous variety Ciliegiolo. Is it a garnet-hued rosé? Or a very light red? Either way, it’s a perfect example of the fresh, food-friendly wines of the region, with wild berry flavors, firm minerality and a gentle little love-bite of tannin.”