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Alta Langa: Italian sparkling wines worth seeking out

Italy’s most underrated sparkling wines? It’s early days yet, but look out for Alta Langa.

Until at least the 1990s Piedmont was, perhaps surprisingly, best known for its sparkling wines. Nowadays, of course, thanks to the meteoric rise of Barolo, Barbaresco, Barbera et al, the region is widely viewed as red wine country.


Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for six Alta Langa sparkling wines to try


This, however, ignores a strong history of producing bubbles that dates back to long before the middle of the 19th century, when Carlo Gancia began using the Champagne method (‘metodo classico’) to ferment Moscato grapes from vineyards near Asti. This practice in turn built on the local tradition going back to the 16th century of making ‘filtrato dolce’, a low-alcohol, bubbly and sweet white wine filtered through hessian sacks to block fermentation, which subsequently morphed into today’s Asti/Moscato d’Asti DOCGs.


Six Alta Langa sparkling wines to try


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