The Brachetto Grape

Brachetto is a red-wine grape originating in, and still almost exclusively grown in, the Piedmont region of Italy. It is used to make not only red wines, but rosés and even sparkling wines. Piemontese red wines labelled “Brachetto” must, by Italian law, be at least 85% Brachetto, and monovarietal bottlings are common. (Brachetto can be, and often is, up to 10% of the Ruché red wines from the appellation “Ruché di Castagnole Monferrato”.)

The dry, table-wine rendition is hard to find (and apparently becoming increasingly so as the sweet bubbly dominates sales ever more), but is well worth seeking out for the occasional offbeat and pleasant light red. Note that almost anything you read elsewhere about Brachetto will be about the sweet bubbly known as Brachetto d’Acqui,; here, we are interested in table wines, not sweeties, so we don’t discuss that wine.

The chief identifying quality of Brachetto-based wines is a clear, distinct strawberry quality, from their aromatic nose through their light-bodied (and usually low-alcohol) flavor. The few dry reds are normally quite dry even though fruity.

Factoid: Wines made from Brachetto grapes grown outside the limits of the legally defined appellation zone cannot be labelled “Brachetto”, so growers in nearby areas often call their Brachetto wines “Birbét”, which means “the little rogue”. (All the table-wine Brachettos are bottlings that cannot legally be called “Brachetto”, though only one is actually called a Birbét—the others have proprietary names: “Anthos” and “Maté”.)

Some Descriptions of Brachetto Wines

Wikipedia
“Brachetto tend to produce light-bodied, highly aromatic wines with distinctive notes of strawberries.”
Wine Searcher
“In times past, Brachetto was sometimes made into dry table wine, but this practice is increasingly rare. Despite being a light-bodied, low-alcohol (typically around 5 percent) wine, Brachetto is highly aromatic. Red and black raspberries, wild strawberries and rose petals are terms frequently used to describe the profound scent. The wine is best consumed in its youth…Brachetto has been known (unofficially) as Birbet in Roero since the region was excluded from the Brachetto d'Acqui DOCG. As Piemont doesn't have an IGT classification, Roero's wines fall into the Vino da Tavola classification, which prevents them from listing Brachetto on the labels. Writing Birbet on them has been the growers' way around the legislation.”
Tar and Roses
“Brachetto tend to produce light bodied, highly aromatic wines with distinctive notes of strawberries. In the DOCG region of Brachetto d’Acqui, the grape is used to produce a slightly sweet sparkling wine that is similar to Lambrusco and is sometimes called the a light red equivalent of Moscato d’Asti.”
Italian Wine Geek
“A grape usually reserved for fruity, sweet, slightly sparkling wines. However, in the hands of masterful grape growers and winemakers, Brachetto becomes something much more. I love this wine. I love its sensuous soft tannins, and is beguiling dried flower aromatics. I love the simple strawberry-tartness that mingles with something headier, something more like tree bark or a damp forest floor. This is a wine to feed your wildest fantasies—a perfect pairing with aged cheeses, braised veal shanks, or a sunset.”
Italy Abroad
“Brachetto grape gives a bright ruby red wine of fresh taste, distinctive for its aroma with hints of rose and strawberry.”
Palate Press
“While there are some great sweet brachetto wines worth seeking out,…the rare still wines are the ones to hunt…As with ruché, pelaverga, and grignolino, there is a strong floral component that combines with brisk acidity and buoyant, lovable plush strawberry fruit.”

Some Brachettos to Try

There are very few dry table-wine bottlings of Brachetto, and not all of those can be found on the U.S. market. The short list below is what there is that is reasonably available.

For a Splurge

This web page is strictly compliant with the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) Protocol v1.0 (Transitional) and the W3C Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Protocol v3 — because we care about interoperability. Click on the logos below to test us!

This page was last modified on Saturday, 30 October 2021, at 11:26 pm Pacific Time.

That Useful Wine Site