🍇 Erbaluce

Erbaluce is a white wine grape from Piedmont in north-western Italy. The VIVC catalogue gives Italy as its country of origin, lists it under the name Erbaluce bianca and records many local synonyms, among them Albaluce and Greco novarese.

The main wine from this grape is Erbaluce di Caluso, also called simply Caluso, a protected designation of origin. According to its specification, it is made in 33 municipalities of the province of Turin, three of the province of Biella and one of the province of Vercelli, and Erbaluce is its main grape. The specification calls the variety versatile: it gives a dry, fresh still white, a sparkling wine and a sweet passito ranging from golden to dark amber.

For the passito, the harvested grapes are laid out on racks in special rooms to dry naturally. The vines are traditionally trained on the Caluso pergola, with rows more than 5 metres apart and about a thousand vines per hectare; pruning leaves long canes, because the first three or four buds at the base bear no fruit.

Erbaluce is also used in other Piedmont appellations: the white wines of Canavese, Colline Novaresi and Coste della Sesia are made entirely from it.