An Uvalino vertical

Cascina Castlet in Piemonte

It takes time for this obscure Piemontese variety to show Walter what it's made of.

Uvalino is one of those delightful, rare Piemontese grape varieties that survives only because someone decided to take custody of it and in doing so rescued it from extinction. This may sound simple but it isn't. It demands serious infatuation as well as tenacity. As a rule, obscure varieties are often not easy to cultivate, simply because no one knows how. Historical local knowledge literally has died out. It is pretty much all trial and error, while the resulting, often tiny, quantities are hard to...