(Claude Auguste / Pic: Massa)
Piedmont has more than enough famous wine and famous grape varieties: Barolo, Barbaresco, Nebbiolo – big names, big prices, large and small cellars, and an international clientele that has learnt over decades that some of Europe's most significant red wines come from this area. It is precisely here that something is currently happening which could be considerably more interesting for the future of winegrowing than the next hundred-point bottle: a white grape variety that was almost extinct is suddenly being planted, bought, sold at high prices and discovered by winegrowers whose businesses have so far functioned primarily with great red wines.
It is called Timorasso.
Forty years ago, there was not a single commercial bottling. Today, more than 500 hectares are planted in Piedmont, 117 producers make Timorasso, top wines cost more than 80 euros, further areas are just coming into production and around two million bottles are already expected for 2027. In itself, this is not yet a revolution in the wine market. The story only becomes interesting when you look at where this variety comes from and who is now investing in it.
Timorasso was already widespread in Piedmont in the 14th century; Leonardo da Vinci is said to have served it at the wedding of Isabella of Aragon in 1469, and at one point around 2,000 hectares of the variety were planted in the region. Then came phylloxera and economics. Timorasso is difficult in the vineyard, labour-intensive, produces unpredictable yields and, after the phylloxera catastrophe, was simply too troublesome to replant on a larger scale. Even the DOC Colli Tortonesi, created in 1973, did not initially mention it at all.
The fact that we are talking about Timorasso at all today is largely due to Walter Massa. At the end of the 1980s, he still owned around 400 scattered vines and bottled a wine from them for the first time in 1987. It did not initially convince people. However, several years of bottle ageing changed it so dramatically that Massa began searching for old plantings, collecting vine material and persuading neighbours to replant. This was not a romantic hobby. Timorasso meant roughly three times as much work for a fraction of the yield of other varieties. Without correspondingly high prices, the sums simply did not add up. In 2003, just 60 hectares had been reached. Then development stagnated.
Today, the situation is different, and this is precisely where Timorasso becomes interesting for the entire European wine world. Producers from the Barolo business have since become involved. Roagna produces Timorasso, as does Borgogno; Vietti, Pio Cesare, La Spinetta and Viberti are also taking part. With them came capital, international distribution and the kind of clientele prepared to pay substantial sums for a white wine made from a variety that was almost unknown until recently. The name Derthona, the Latin name for Tortona, became the shared term for the ambitious wines made from Timorasso. An old variety acquired a new economic existence.
This is something one should take a closer look at right now.
In recent days, we published anonymous trading figures on WINEPARTY according to which red wine is said to have fallen by 46 per cent in the first half of 2026 at a major online retailer. We still cannot independently verify these figures – requests for comment went unanswered. However, hardly anyone still disputes that red wine is facing problems in the trade. Sooner or later, Europe's major red wine regions will have to consider what else they can earn money from in the future.
Italy offers one possible answer: white wine. And, of all things, from old, regional varieties.
The new generation of wine drinkers does not seem to be looking only for new products. They are also looking for provenance, rare grape varieties and stories that were not invented only yesterday in a marketing agency and its AI. Timorasso has plenty of all that. Added to this is a flavour profile that fits the present remarkably well. Young Derthona wines can be saline, taut, floral or characterised by stone fruit; some are initially distinctly reductive. After a few years, they develop hay, hazelnut, acacia, beeswax, ginger, fennel and turmeric. The variety has substance and considerable ageing potential. This is white wine for people who want to discover wine and still do not want to forgo depth.
There could be far more to this than a Piedmontese success story. Europe's famous red wine regions are sitting on a cultural treasure that they have partly forgotten themselves. Old white grape varieties were grubbed up, abandoned or reduced to tiny areas because for decades it was easier to make money from the great red names. Now the market is changing, and suddenly these forgotten varieties in particular may become interesting again.
This does not mean that Nebbiolo should be grubbed up in Barolo tomorrow to plant Timorasso. But it does mean that a wine region is behaving rather unwisely economically if it ties its future exclusively to a wine category whose sales are currently under considerable pressure. White wine is growing, lighter drinking is growing, and curiosity about indigenous varieties is growing. And a wine that comes with a centuries-old history does not first have to invent its provenance.
Young wine drinkers do not need to be lured with ever more new fantasy cuvées, colourful labels and artificially invented categories. You can also give them a grape variety that Leonardo da Vinci knew, that was almost forgotten for a hundred years and that is now once again producing excellent wines. You can tell them why people such as Walter Massa held on to it for decades, even though there was initially hardly any money to be made from it. And you can pour them a wine that then does for itself what remains to be done.