Etichetta Bianca 2019
Carema, Alto Piemonte

92 pts Vinous (Galloni)
From: Alto Piemonte: Small Is Beautiful (Feb 2024) The 2019 Carema Etichetta Bianca is laced with sweet pipe tobacco, cedar, mint, dried flowers, crushed rocks and Alpine herbs. This is an especially floral, savory vintage for the Etichetta Bianca, a wine that impresses with its energy, verve and class. The only thing missing here is a bit of freshness and depth. - By Antonio Galloni on November 2023
Ferrando remains a reference point in Carema. The 2019s I tasted for this report are gorgeous. This year, I have a slight preference for the Etichetta Nera over the Etichetta Bianca, as the smaller barrels used for the Etichetta Nera seem to add a bit of textural richness that is a help in this cooler, classically austere vintage. Although I did not taste any new releases of the estate’s entry-level offerings, those wines have been especially fine over the last handful of years.

Power...finesse....the last of these is where the Bianca really excels with its gorgeous and superfluously aromatic nose. Ferrando’s Carema wines might just be the archetype of Nebbiolo purity. With an energetic palate and nose, the aromatics soar out of the glass effortlessly while the palate hums along with tension, power, finesse and most importantly, length.

The appellation of Carema is extremely small: only 16 hectares (approximately 40 acres) are planted to the vine. The Ferrando family controls 2.5 hectares of the appellation.

If there is any wine that defines the Ferrando “oeuvre” it is this one: the white label Carema. No single wine in the Rosenthal portfolio is more illustrative of their work than this brilliant rendition of Nebbiolo. Ferrando was importer Neal Rosenthal’s first wines he imported back in 1980 and to this day his most favored child in a portfolio family of epic wines.

Terroir
Produced exclusively from the Nebbiolo grape planted in a series of vineyards that sit beneath Mont Blanc (Monte Bianco) in a broad amphitheater with full southern exposure overlooking the river, Dora Baltea, that runs from the snow-capped mountains south through the Valle d’Aosta.

The vines are trained in a special way on pergola (known as “tupin” in local dialect) to obtain maximum exposure to the sun in this high altitude district and are planted on terraces of eroded hard slate rock that provide the perfect foil for alpine Nebbiolo at its finest.

Winemaking
The Nebbiolo grapes are typically harvested in late October; then, they undergo a cuvaison of approximately two weeks in stainless steel before being racked into a mixture of large and small barrels for an extensive aging period of 30 to 36 months before being bottled (without filtration). By law, the Carema cannot be released before 4 years of aging.

The Carema Bianca from Ferrando reveals the most elegant and delicate and complex characteristics of the Nebbiolo grape with a surprising capacity to age. It has been known to age perfectly for 30+ years, displaying vibrant, seductive qualities that are simply astonishing.