Arneis

ARNEIS

The “Rascal” White

The origin of this white-berried variety, whose name in the local dialect means “rascal” or “scatterbrain”, is lost in the mists of time: some documents link it, from the fifteenth century, to the Roero, today the privileged land for its cultivation. After prospering over the centuries, this variety was fatally struck by the crisis in viticulture and the depopulation of the countryside around the two World Wars.
By the late 1960s it had been reduced to a few scattered rows among those of Nebbiolo, because its very sweet, early-ripening berries kept birds away from the black grapes, which were more profitable. It was the entrepreneurial insight of some producers that established a white wine of value in a land that seemed destined only for red wines, and restored visibility and prestige to this wine.