Red
Afrodite
By Paride Chiovini, Alto Piemonte, Piemonte, Italy
Afrodite is a Colline Novaresi DOC Vespolina (locally called Ughetta), vinified purely from the San Giuseppe vineyard in Sizzano and named by the estate for the goddess Aphrodite.
Tasting notes
Clear, ruby red with violet hues in its youth. Intense, fine aroma with a big burst of macerated rose, followed by fresh fruit and finishing spice notes of pepper and cinnamon. On the palate it is intense, dry and savoury with red fruit, a fair acid structure, very persistent and pleasantly bitter on the finish.
Pairs well with
An all-purpose wine, pairs elegantly with antipasti, douja salami and fidighina, simple first courses and white meat second courses; worth trying with freshwater fish.
Technical details
- Style
- Red
- Denomination
- Colline Novaresi DOC Vespolina
- Grape
- Vespolina 100%
- Cru / vineyard
- San Giuseppe
- Production area
- Noche e San Giuseppe area, municipality of Sizzano (0.5 ha)
- Soil
- Clay-sandy, acidic
- Exposure
- South-south/west
- Harvest
- Manual harvest in crates, last third of September
- Vineyard planting
- Older vineyard parcels are planted at low density; despite their age they have reached productive balance thanks to well-developed root systems, which brings out the site's typicity. Newer plantings exceed 4,000 vines per hectare, laid out to make the most of sun exposure. All vineyard work, from winter pruning to summer green pruning, is done by hand to avoid stressing the vines.
- Vinification
- Destemmed and red-vinified, maceration in steel tanks for 5 to 6 days at controlled temperature with pump-overs every 8 hours. Malolactic fermentation in steel in December/January. Matured in steel for 9 months, bottled in late summer, with a further three to four months' refinement in bottle. Yield: 60 quintals per hectare.
- Serving temperature
- 18-20°C
- Storage
- Ready to drink in its first year, improving over the following two.