Bisson 2008 Cinque Terre Bianco Marea

The Man... For 30 years Pierluigi Lugano has been a champion of Ligurian wine. His home region needed one. He has almost single-handedly resuscitated the reputation of viticulture surrounding Genoa. As a major industrial center and Italy’s busiest important port, Genoa has swallowed farmland and steadily moved this area’s economy away from agriculture for generations. In the 1970s Lugano saw the writing on the wall for the indigenous grapes of his homeland. He ambitiously began buying fruit, and then land planted to Ciliegiolo, Bianchetta Genovese, and others. Pierluigi also established a retail store to sell his wines. He is a man of obvious energy.

The Land... Lugano’s home town of Chiavari is north of the Cinque Terre, a beautiful stretch of Italy’s western coast that attracts a tourist army every summer. Farming on the rocky Gulf of Tigullio requires harvesting the scant stands of vine that cling to every possible parcel of flat land not covered by lemon trees or houses. The Mare Ligure is bordered by cliffs, winding roads, and terrifying one-lane tunnels. Get stuck behind a Fiat Panda and you’ll have hours to stare out at the turquoise waters and spindly beaches that stretch south to Tuscany. Fishing and farming may have largely gone away, replaced by international transportation and tourist industry jobs, but enough vestiges of the former economy remain to charm vacationers. 

The Wine... Bosco, Vermentino, and Albarola are the grapes in Marea, a wine which is often Pierluigi Lugano’s most complex and compelling. The fruit for this release comes from Volastra in Riomaggiore, a coastal parcel in the heart of the Cinque Terre region. The wine is aged on its lees for a significant period of time, in accordance with older winemaking traditions of the Cinque Terre. Many of Lugano’s wines are fresh and thirst-quenching; this release shows Enoteca Bisson is as capable of making delicious full-bodied, golden white wines. Marea is perfect for frito misto. Genoa enjoys a reputation in Italy as one of that nation’s culinary capitals, not surprising given the caliber of fresh seafood available locally for this, and other classic Ligurian specialties.