Wine & Spirits - August 2017 - 29

Liguria
from Quirky to Chic

by Wolfgang M. Weber
Liguria is a deliberate place. The region's main city, Genoa, is a massive international port, but
aside from the obvious access to the sea, the city is connected directly to Milan and the industrial
north of Italy by a busy motorway that slices through the mountains that line the coast here. The
rest of Liguria, in many ways, feels oddly removed from the fray, a place to pass through more
than a destination itself, the main thoroughfares leading away from the province.
"Aside from the Cinque Terre and Portofino," says
Ceri Smith of Biondivino in San Francisco, "Liguria is often overlooked as a travel destination." It's
after hours at the shop she opened on Green Street in
2006, and the dimmed lighting seems to embrace the
boldly painted walls, their orange glow radiating out
onto the foggy, dark sidewalk. In the years that I've
been hanging out at Smith's shop, one of our tightest
bonds is a shared love of all things Liguria.
In this moment, the mood takes me back to the
bright orange deck chairs and umbrellas last summer on the rocky beach at Bonassola, a small town
in Liguria Levante, the eastern part of the province
not too far from Cinque Terre. I had trekked in from
France to meet friends for a wedding, a journey of
four different trains and a final section on foot, down
a winding street and some steep stairs to Bonassola's
main square.
Once settled at the beach, the groom-to-be shared
a bottle of local wine, blended from albarola, bosca
and vermentino. The family behind the wine had
previously owned a restaurant in town, and now the
father and sons were rehabilitating an old vineyard,
farming organically and bottling their own wine as Cà
du Ferrà rather than selling it to the co-op in neighboring Levanto.
Their vineyards could be seen high above the town,
clinging to steep terraced slopes that overlooked the

sea. It seemed like a tricky place to farm, necessitating
the energies and focus typically devoted to an aspiring grand cru rather than what's essentially refreshing
coastal table wine. But in that moment, there wasn't
anything else I'd have rather been drinking.
"These are honest, food-friendly wines, quirkiness
and all," Smith says, catching my reverie. During a
visit to Liguria in the months before she opened Biondivino, Smith found herself in Camogli, not far from
the super yachts and glitz of Portofino. "It was a long
lunch of the most delicate fish crudo and gamberoni,
the contrast of the bright green olive oil against the
translucence of the fresh raw fish," she recalls. "And
with it, a bottle of pigato-its salty texture was like
the ocean air. It was magic."
Any grower with proximity to the sea wants to
claim the salty air as part of the terroir expression of
their site; however, in Liguria, that sentiment feels
more real than elsewhere. Certainly the region's
winds have a major effect here, both those from the
sea as well as diurnal winds from the high inland
mountains.
As Paolo Ruffino at Punta Crena puts it, the wind is
fundamental to farming in Liguria, driving different
stages of a vine's growth cycle throughout the year,
as well as providing beneficial effects, like moderating
heat or tempering mildew and rot when there's excessive moisture. The result is a vibrant, salty, lemon-

WINE & SPIRITS

AUGUST 2017

29



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wine & Spirits - August 2017

Contents
Wine & Spirits - August 2017 - Cover1
Wine & Spirits - August 2017 - Cover2
Wine & Spirits - August 2017 - 1
Wine & Spirits - August 2017 - 2
Wine & Spirits - August 2017 - 3
Wine & Spirits - August 2017 - 4
Wine & Spirits - August 2017 - Contents
Wine & Spirits - August 2017 - 6
Wine & Spirits - August 2017 - 7
Wine & Spirits - August 2017 - 8
Wine & Spirits - August 2017 - 9
Wine & Spirits - August 2017 - 10
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Wine & Spirits - August 2017 - 21
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Wine & Spirits - August 2017 - Cover3
Wine & Spirits - August 2017 - Cover4
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