Sweet in Price, not Taste, Dolcetto Reds Take Hold in Piedmont

No wine name seems more of a misnomer than Piedmont’s dolcetto, which in Italian means “little sweet one.” Piedmont does make sweet wines, like Asti Spumante and Brachetto d’Acqui, but dolcetto is a very dry red wine made from a namesake early-ripening, low-acid workhorse grape that grows easily in soil where the more refined nebbiolo does poorly. Dolcetto is sweet only in the colloquial sense of the ripeness of its grapes and softness of its tannins.

Because of its versatility, dolcetto is widely planted in Piedmont, with seven mini-appellations under the dolcetto umbrella, including dolcetto d’acqui, dolcetto d’alba, and dolcetto d’asti. Its light acids allow the fruitiness of the wine to come to the fore on the palate, so it’s easy to drink early after vinification and many bottlings are made in a light beaujolais style at a low price.