Appellation · Italy
Roero
The sandy hills north of the Tanaro, making a lighter Nebbiolo and Piedmont’s best white wine from Arneis.
Reds: medium-bodied, perfumed Nebbiolo with sour cherry and rose, softer tannin than Barolo. Whites: dry, soft, low-acid Arneis with pear, almond and white flowers.
About Roero
The Roero lies across the Tanaro from the Langhe, on markedly sandier soils, and it makes both a lighter Nebbiolo and Piedmont’s most important white wine.
Roero red is perfumed and considerably softer than Barolo — the sand gives earlier ripening and gentler tannin — and it is one of the more approachable ways to meet the variety.
Arneis is the white. It was close to extinction in the 1960s, with only a few hectares left, and has been revived to the point of being Piedmont’s signature white grape. It makes a soft, pear- and almond-scented dry white with low acidity.
What the name means
- Legal name
- Roero DOCG
- Type
- Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG)
- Set by
- MASAF
- Recognised
- 2004
- Regulates
- Origin, plus grape varieties, maximum yields, minimum ageing.
Everything a DOC controls, plus a compulsory analytical and tasting examination before bottling and a numbered state seal on the neck. The tier above DOC in regulatory strictness, which is not the same as guaranteed quality.
Roero for red, at least 95% Nebbiolo; Roero Arneis for white, at least 95% Arneis.
Grapes
Wines from here
Soil and geology
- Underlying geology
- Marine sands of Pliocene age, considerably younger and looser than the Langhe marls
- Soils
- Sandy soils with pockets of clay
- Drainage
- Free-draining
- Water holding
- Low
What it does to the vine. Sand drains fast and warms quickly, so Nebbiolo here ripens earlier and produces less tannin than on the marls across the river. The wines are correspondingly lighter and readier, which is a straightforward consequence of the ground rather than of lesser sites.
WineHQ describes soil in terms of what it demonstrably does — drainage, heat retention, water supply, rooting depth — and not in terms of flavours it is said to transmit. Vines take up ions, not aromas, and no mechanism has been demonstrated by which a mineral in the ground is tasted in the glass. See soil and drainage.
Rules worth knowing
Confirmed in the EU register
Roero is registered as a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), file number PDO-IT-A1261, protected at EU level since 1996.
Article 107 of Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013
Specification published: Official Journal L 275, 25.10.2022 · Official Journal
Only the rules that change what to expect in the glass or on the label. WineHQ does not reproduce production specifications, and each entry carries the date it was last checked because appellation rules change.
The designation is confirmed above. WineHQ has not read this appellation’s production specification, so it publishes no yields, ageing minima or permitted-variety lists for it — those come from the document linked above, not from a summary of it.
What to eat, and how to serve it
Derived from this region’s signature styles. Each is listed separately, because a region does not have one serving temperature.
Langhe Nebbiolo
Serve at 15–17°C (cellar cool).
Try with mushroom pasta, mushroom pizza or game birds.
Where to go next
Places worth trying if you like this one — neighbours, rivals, and the obvious step across.
- Barolo — Nebbiolo from eleven communes of the Langhe, and the most tannic, most perfumed and slowest-maturing red wine Italy makes.
- Barbaresco — Barolo’s smaller neighbour across Alba — the same grape, a slightly warmer site and shorter ageing rules, and a wine that arrives sooner.
- Langhe DOC — The broad appellation covering the whole Langhe, and the place declassified Barolo and young-vine Nebbiolo go — often the best value in Piedmont.
Sources
Sources consulted
- Italian DOP and IGP wine register — Ministero dell’agricoltura, della sovranità alimentare e delle foreste (MASAF)