The evening seems to be the right one. At the table of a restaurant, in good company, everything seems to anticipate an enjoyable evening with nice food matched to nice wine. Also the restaurant looks nice: the room is inviting and reassuring, the lovely mise en place anticipates the house's style, the personnel is kind and everything seems to confirm we have chosen the right place. A quick look to the menu arouses our fantasy and - being good wine lovers - we foretaste the foods matched to wines perfectly suited for what we will soon have in our dishes. The waitress gives us the wine list, promptly saying a sommelier will come to our table and will help us choosing a wine. «Wow! They even have a sommelier in this restaurant!», this is our first and delighted comment, something ensuring we will have a good service of wine and the certainty the restaurant has nice bottles.

 At the first glance and considering the remarkable number of pages, the wine list looks like an encyclopedia's volume. The first remark, without even opening it, is that it will take a lot of time before we will choose our wine, as we think it would be nice and pleasing to browse such a huge wine list. We open the wine list and, at the first glance, it seems to be well organized: wines listed by type and area of origin, with pages dedicated to foreign wines and with good offers, including prices. We continue to browse the wine list, looking for a nice wine, and suddenly appears a white page, as well as the next page, just like all the rest. In other words, not even one fifth of this volume is used for wines, whereas the rest is occupied by useless and empty white pages. With irony, we think in this restaurant they are thinking about enlarging the cellar and, while waiting the job is done, they probably have thought about leaving a proper number of pages in the wine list! One thing is certain: the initial enthusiasm begins to fade, replaced by a veiled skepticism.

 We browse the few pages of this volume again, and we finally make our choice, convinced the wine we chose is the right one for accompanying our dinner. At the table comes the waitress again to whom we tell our choice: after having repeated for two times the name of the wine and then to let her reading the name in the wine list, we wait for the bottle to come to our table, perfectly served in the nice glasses she brought to our table. After about ten minutes of waiting, the waitress comes back and says they could not find the bottle we ordered and therefore they suspect that wine is not available anymore. To reassure us, she says the sommelier will come to our table and will suggest a new wine. While we wait for the sommelier to come, disappointed by the fact we will not taste the wine we chose, we browse the wine list again and then we choose another wine.

 The “sommelier” finally comes: a man with a scarcely neat look, a couple days' growth of beard, a scarcely professional and sloppy dress, a behavior showing a slight intolerance and a non friendly “haughtiness”. We try to go beyond his appearance and we order our second choice. The “sommelier” tells us they ran out of this wine, too. We have the same answer at our third choice as well. Annoyed and disappointed, we ask the “sommelier” to suggest a wine. Proud of such a “trust”, he suggests a wine of a winery he claims to have personally discovered and selected and that he consider excellent. We accept his suggestion, looking forward to try something new and, hopefully, interesting. After few minutes, he comes back to our table with a bottle and - right now - he gives his very best: the bottle held by the neck, corkscrew stuck in the cork with strength, we watch with disconcertment, to the horrifying rite of uncorking. After having furiously fought the bottle, by continuously rotating and shaking it, while strongly pulling the corkscrew, at the end of this piteous fight, the cork surrenders announcing its defeat with a loud “pop”. We don't even think what could have happened with a bottle of sparkling wine. Not to mention, the wine was a stupendous representative of mediocrity.

 This is not a story, this is something really happened and, sadly, a fact which can be seen with a worrying frequency. Not just for the improbable “wine lists” which are frequently found in restaurants - and often mention wines which are not available and which should at least signaled, even better, removed - but in particular for the lack of professionalism too frequently seen in service. Even worse, when they boast having competences they cannot show with facts, to the detriment of those who effectively have such competences. We don't think we are exaggerating: wine service is something serious, something which can certainly make the difference in a restaurant, something which can ruin the content of a bottle when improperly done. We are not saying every restaurant should have a qualified sommelier who knows the job: it is understandable such a professional figure has a cost and that sometimes this is not “suited” with the style of certain restaurants.

 This not however excludes the fact in every restaurant they should at least make use of the basics of wine service, after all the rules for ensuring an “essential” service are not so much. Moreover, it is not just a matter of professionalism, it is also a matter of respect for clients who pay for a service. No one expects - or at least, not in all restaurants - an academic and impeccable service, but it is also true no one wants to see the ordered bottle roughly mistreated. Wine service certainly is an art, and just like any other type of art, it is not something for anyone, it also takes a vocation and a personal attitude. Moreover, a bad service, and not only for wine, discredits and damage the credibility and the pleasantness of a restaurant, no matter what it is. Just because one chooses to go to the restaurant to satisfy a need which goes far beyond the simple act of “eating and drinking”: this is something everyone can do at home and, in particular, at a more convenient price. Service is an art: one should understand it before posing as a pathetic and clumsy puppet dressed as a peacock spreading its tail, showing the littleness of their disconcerting lack of professionalism.

 In the wine scene of Piedmont's reds produced with Nebbiolo grape and classified by the Italian quality system as Denominazione d'Origine Controllata e Garantita wines (DOCG, Denomination of Controlled and Guaranteed Origin), Roero Rosso (rosso means “red” in Italian) was successful, in a short time, to reach the fame and the prestige of the other great red wines of the region, in particular Barolo and Barbaresco. As opposed to these two wines - which according to the production disciplinary are produced with 100% Nebbiolo - Roero Rosso can be produced with at least 95% of Nebbiolo and the remaining part with red berried grapes authorized in the area. Despite the production disciplinary provides for the use of other varieties, most of the cases, Roero Rosso is produced with 100% Nebbiolo. This variety is one of the most common red berried grapes of Piedmont and most of quality wines produced in this region make use of this grape.

 Besides the red style - for which it is also provided the riserva (reserve) style - wines of Roero DOCG also include the production of whites from Arneis grape, also as sparkling style. The vineyard of Roero showing a red color are mainly cultivated with Nebbiolo, one of the grapes having the highest content in polyphenols in Italy, as well as having an evident acidity. Mother of great and full bodied wines, Nebbiolo is a variety which tends to ripe later than the other varieties cultivated in the area, generally in the time when fog (nebbia in Italian language) is frequently found in vineyards, characteristic from which the grape takes its name. Because of its characteristics, in particular the high content in polyphenols and acidity, to which is also added the good content in sugar and which produces a pretty high quantity of alcohol, wines produced with Nebbiolo are usually aged in cask, in order to reach a good balance by means of a proper roundness.

 According to the production disciplinary, Roero Rosso - which can also be simply defined as “Roero” - is produced with at least 95-98% of Nebbiolo and for the remaining part can be used non aromatic red berried grapes which cultivation is permitted in Piedmont. Roero Rosso must age at least for 20 months - of which at least 6 in wood - prior to commercialization, whereas are needed 32 months, of which at least 6 in wood, for the riserva style. As mentioned above, the aging in wood gives wines produced with Nebbiolo - including Roero Rosso - a rounder character, by smoothing the “harsh” qualities of tannins and acidity. Also alcohol plays a fundamental role in the balance of wines produced with Nebbiolo - its effect is useful for balancing both astringency and acidity - and in Roero Rosso are not rare cases in which the alcohol by volume is greater than 13%.

	The three Roero Rosso wines of our comparative tasting

 Despite the production disciplinary of Roero Rosso provides for the use of many varieties, the wines of our comparative tasting are all made with 100% Nebbiolo and all of them, of course, are aged in wood containers. The first wine of the tasting is Negro's Roero Sudisfà, aged for 24 months in barrique and for at least 5 months in bottle. The second wine is Monchiero Carbone's Roero Printi, also in this case aged for 24 months, but, as opposed to the previous wine, in this case the producer has chosen the cask to which followed at least one year of aging in bottle. The third wine is Correggia's Roero Roche d'Ampsej, aged for 22 months in cask to which follows at least 12 months of aging in bottle. The wines will be selected according to the latest commercialized vintages and will be served at the temperature of 18°C (64°F). For the evaluation of the wines we will make use, as usual, of three ISO tasting glasses.

 Nebbiolo is a grape characterized by a moderate content in coloring substances, therefore its wines generally show not very deep colors and moderate transparency. Because of the period of aging used for the production, in wines produced with Nebbiolo grapes, purple hues - a sign of youth in wines - are generally absent during appearance analysis, and after few years of aging, nuances will show garnet red colors and, in some cases, brick red colors. The color which is generally observed in “young” Roero Rosso is intense and brilliant ruby red, with ruby red nuances or, in some cases, garnet red. With time, following the typical evolution of red wines, the color will show garnet red hues, whereas nuances will show evident brick red colors. At the top of its evolution, Roero Rosso will show a brick red color, and a higher transparency because of the sedimentation of coloring substances, a color which will also be observed in nuances.

 Let's begin the appearance analysis of our comparative tasting from Negro's Roero Sudisfà. By holding the glass tilted over a white surface - to this purpose is enough a sheet of paper or a white tablecloth - we will observe the color of the wine at the base of the glass, where the liquid mass has a greater thickness. The color of this first wine is brilliant ruby red with a moderate transparency, whereas nuances - observed at the edge of the wine, towards the opening of the glass - will show a garnet red color. The second wine of the tasting - Monchiero Carbone's Roero Printi - is characterized by an intense ruby red color and a lower transparency than the previous wine, and nuances show the same color. The evaluation of the third wine of our comparative tasting, Correggia's Roero Roche d'Ampsej, shows an intense ruby red color and a pretty low transparency, lower than the two previous wines, and ruby red nuances.

 Nebbiolo, in particular when it is fermented or aged in cask, gives the taster's nose an olfactory profile made of rich sensations of red and black berried fruits as well as flowers. This quality is sometimes mitigated by the use of barrique, an element which started - and continues to start - many debates among Piedmont's and Langhe's producers, divided between the ones who support the use of the traditional cask for the aging of Nebbiolo and the other who prefer using the famous small barrel. It will in fact be the type of cask to determine the development of the so called tertiary aromas of Nebbiolo - and therefore of Roero Rosso - giving the wine a “more complex” character while hiding flower and fruit aromas. Among the identifying qualities of Roero Rosso are mentioned the aromas of cherry, plum and violet, to which are usually added raspberry, strawberry and rose.

 We will begin the evaluation of the olfactory profiles of the wines of comparative tasting from Negro's Roero Sudisfà. The first phase of this evaluation is about the examination of the so called opening aromas, that is the olfactory sensations identifying a wine and which are made of “light” aromatic substances, that is substances which can be perceived to the nose also in presence of modest quantities of oxygen. By holding the glass in vertical position and without swirling, we will proceed with the first smell allowing the appreciation of the aromas of cherry, strawberry and raspberry, three fruit aromas very frequent in wines produced with Nebbiolo grape. After having swirled the glass - an operation which will favor the development of other aromas present in the wine - we will tilt the glass and we will do a second smell, completing the olfactory profile of this wine with the aromas of plum, violet and rose, as well as “complex” sensations of vanilla, tobacco, cinnamon, cocoa and a pleasing balsamic touch of menthol.

 Let's now pass to the evaluation of the second wine: Monchiero Carbone's Roero Printi. The opening of the wine gives the nose intense and clean sensations of ripe cherry, plum and violet, a very typical opening of Roero Rosso and of wines produced with Nebbiolo grape. After having swirled the glass, we will do a second smell which will allow the perception of the aromas of blueberry, plum, raspberry and blackberry to which are added vanilla, cinnamon, licorice, menthol and thyme. It should be noticed the impact of wood of this wine with the previous one. Let's now proceed with the evaluation of the third wine: Correggia's Roero Roche d'Ampsej. Also the opening of this wine gives the nose intense and clean aromas of ripe cherry, plum and violet. The second smell - done after having swirled the glass - will complete the olfactory profile of the wine with blueberry, blackberry, tobacco, thyme, licorice, vanilla, black pepper and cinnamon, as well as a pleasing balsamic touch of menthol.

 Wines produced with Nebbiolo grape hardly goes unnoticed. The typical gustatory qualities of the grape in fact make its wines pretty robust and particular, also thanks to the remarkable astringency of tannins and the crispness which can be perceived to the mouth. It is not by chance wines made from Nebbiolo are frequently defined as an iron fist in a velvet glove. These two characteristics forces the wine maker to balance these “impetuous” qualities - which would make the wine not very pleasing - with a right quantity of alcohol and a right roundness. Alcohol is simply obtained by the fermentation of sugar - which in Nebbiolo is found in good quantity - whereas roundness is given by the aging in cask and by time. Because of the remarkable acidity and astringency of Roero Rosso, it is required a pretty high quantity of alcohol in order to reach a good balance and that in this wine - as well as for the other wines made from Nebbiolo grape - can sometimes be higher than 14%.

 Let's start the gustatory analysis of our wines from Negro's Roero Sudisfà. By taking a sip from the glass, we will evaluate attack - that is the initial sensations - characterized by an evident astringency accompanied by a pretty high crispness, a typical attack in Roero Rosso. Soon after will be perceived the burning effect of alcohol and the roundness given by barrique, therefore making the wine very balanced. Also the attack of the second wine - Monchiero Carbone's Roero Printi - is astringent and crisp, well balanced both by alcohol and the pleasing roundness. The third wine of our comparative tasting - Correggia's Roero Roche d'Ampsej - is characterized by a pretty astringent and crisp attack, perfectly balanced by alcohol and pleasing roundness. It should be noticed, in all wines, the remarkable sensation of body perceived in the mouth, full and very robust.

 Roero Rosso is a wine giving magnificent emotions in every phase of the tasting, a complex wine frequently characterized by pretty long and clean final sensations. The finish of the first wine of our comparative tasting - Negro's Roero Sudisfà - is intense and persistent, leaving in the mouth pleasing and clean flavors of cherry, plum and raspberry. The finish of Monchiero Carbone's Roero Printi is very persistent and intense, allowing the perception in the mouth of long and clean flavors of ripe cherry, plum and blackberry. Also the finish of Correggia's Roero Roche d'Ampsej is nothing less, also in this case very intense and persistent, leaving in the mouth clean and pleasing flavors of black cherry, plum and blueberry. The wines of our comparative tasting are good representatives of the great wines from Roero, a magnificent wine which was successful, in few years, to conquer the glasses of the more exacting wine lovers, while confirming - once again - the greatness of Nebbiolo grape and its territory.

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