That is “Barbera” is a sweetheart, not “Barbara”. Although I don’t doubt that if your name is Barbara you are also a sweetheart.

Every week I seem to stumble across a new native Italian grape variety. It’s just one of the many things that keeps me curious about Italy. And it would seem that with every bottle I open, I’m tasting my way through hundreds of years of old worldly heritage.

Barbera is a grape variety that has caught my attention lately. I’ve known about it for a while, but for many wine drinkers it is still unfamiliar. It could have been much more popular today had it not been for some bad publicity in the mid-1980′s. A number of Barbera producers decided to add methanol to their wines, killing more than 30 people and blinding many more in the process. The fall in demand for Barbera allowed for Montepulciano to take the hot seat.

This story has echoes of Austria’s disastrous anti-freeze scandal around the same time. Whereas serious longer term damage was inflicted on the Austrian wine industry, the Italians escaped from this one with their reputation as a whole left reasonably intact. Lessons learned have led to a gradual revival of this Italian sweetheart, and hopefully before long it will be rolling off the tongue of wine guzzling enthusiasts as effortlessly as “Montepulciano”.

Thought to have originated in Monferrato, part of the Piemonte region in Northern Italy, Barbera is capable of very high yields, so pruning is important for producing the best fruit for the best wines. To soften the naturally high tannins, winemakers may age in oak, giving the wines an extra richness, with flavours of plummy black fruit and spice. Lighter styles boasting red fruits are also common. For me, Barbera, with its signature high acidity, is one to be enjoyed with food.