This weekend, wine lovers around the world will be opening THAT bottle.
You know the one. The one we’ve been waiting for, the one we’ve held off opening until just the right special occasion, the one that sadly but all too often never actually gets opened.
That’s exactly why Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher, when they wrote their “Tastings” column for the Wall Street Journal, brilliantly decreed that the last Saturday in February would be Open That Bottle Night, or OTBN. And so it was.
OTBN is about savoring the moment simply because it’s THIS moment. OTBN is the opposite of procrastinating pleasure.
For me, for as in-the-moment as OTBN is, it also inspires fond memories of past bottles which, in turn, inspires happy anticipation of all of those bottles still yet to open and enjoy. In that spirit, I’d like to modify the name of OTBN slightly to Open Those Bottles Nights… plural.
(Forgive me for wanting to linger over the great idea of OTBN, and a few great bottles, just a little while longer.)
For today’s OTBN post, I’m using an Italian wine I recently enjoyed as a jumping off point. Randall Restiano, Beverage Director at Eataly Flatiron in New York introduced us to the 2018 Derthona Timorasso from Piemonte. In true wine lover, storyteller fashion, Restiano described Walter Massa’s preservation of the Timorasso grape from the brink of extinction, as well as its triumphant commercial success years later.
It’s a great plot line and a great story, the kind that solidifies memories of those bottles in your mind. I was so intrigued (I’m a sucker for great story…) that I started asking around about the Timorasso grape and, as they say, the plot thickens.
Some colleagues love Timorasso but not necessarily Walter Massa’s version, and recommend Elisa Semino’s instead. Other colleagues think Timorasso is far over-rated and denigrate its minerality and ageability, two characteristics of the grape that otherwise receive critics’ praise. Still other colleagues were unfamiliar with Timorasso in general, and were curious to learn more about this previously unknown grape from Piemonte.
I dug a little deeper, and started pulling books off the shelf. Not so surprisingly, given its recent history, references to Timorasso vary and evolve over time. For example, the 2006 edition of Jancis Robinson’s Oxford Companion to Wine includes Timorasso in its comprehensively encyclopedic list of entries but only briefly: Timorasso, the entry reads, is a “rare Piemontese vine variety making aromatic, durable white wine and grappa.” The updated entry in the 2015 edition of the same book clarifies that Timorasso is a “relatively rare Piemontese vine variety enjoying a renaissance for its aromatic, durable white varietals. The 2010 vine census found only 129 [hectares] in total.”
Karen MacNeil’s Wine Bible, on the other hand, doesn’t mention Timorasso at all in its list of “Grapes of Piedmont.” For white grapes, it’s only Arneis, Cortese and Moscato.
Fittingly perhaps, it’s Ian D’Agata’s Native Wine Grapes of Italy (published in 2014) that offers the most thorough entry for Timorasso. He starts by describing it as “an intellectual wine” and, “much like many intellectuals you might know, these are sometimes best taken in small doses.” Though it’s challenging to grow, Timorasso was once Piemonte’s most common white variety along with Cortese.
D’Agata notes Massa’s role in the renaissance of Timorasso, writing that “the excitement about TImorasso and its wines in palpable, since the best wines really are some of Italy’s most unique, interesting white wines.” Like other colleagues I mentioned above, D’Agata also references Elisa Semino, who runs La Colombera estate with her father and did her enology school thesis on the variety. Semino points out that there are still some hundred year old, ungrafted vines to be found, especially in the higher part of the Val Curone area of Piemonte.
Those colorful and various opinions, along with the curious “hero’s journey” of its history, embed Timorasso happily in this year’s OTBN experience. Please stay tuned for more of the Open Those Bottles Nights experiences coming soon.