A wine that makes sommeliers cluck. Winemaker Walter Massa rescued the local Timorasso grape from obscurity, producing a white wine that is both full-bodied and razor sharp. The self-effacing master tends to be equally low profile. When you get lost going there, start asking people 100 kilometers out; they all know and love him, from the gas station guy to the producer next door. Even Jancis Robinson, who mostly saves her love for the French, is titillated: “I absolutely loved this white wine [2006 Massa Timorasso ‘Derthona’] and found more aromas and flavours, and more pleasure, as I drank it over the course of a few days…. Very inviting spiced honeyed nose and some creamy, lightly spiced aromas…. Nutty, citrus, with just discernible floral and apricot notes. Full of flavour and yet restraint, cool and fresh and lingeringly elegant and aromatic…. As the week went by, I found even more flavours emerging – white flowers, ginger, mineral and still nutty. I also noted a firmness in the texture but it was still alluringly creamy. Long, powerful and sophisticated with a gently floral finish.”