I'll drink to that where we get behind the scenes of the beverage business.

I'm Levy Dalton.

I'm Erin Scala and here's our show today. Oh, As one of the more fickle wine grapes to grow, committing to the production of Nebbiolo can be a true labor of love.

Nebbiolo has a long growing season.

It will flower early but ripen late, increasing the time during which things can go wrong.

It needs a lot of sunlight and usually will get the

south slopes with great exposure, but it also needs wind protection and

prefers a certain elevation. And if it rains after the grapes turn red, the quality can tank.

Nebbiolo is picky about the climate and soil types it will grow in,

but when it chooses to grow in a particular soil,

it is extremely expressive of even the slightest micro-expressions of the soil.

The buds are also picky. Often the first ones are infertile, so in the vineyard you have to

account for this with more space.

In the post-Viloxra era, much thought needs to go into root stock selection as well.

And in the Lange, root stocks that can withstand high amounts of active lime are a necessity.

As an older grape variety that is centuries and possibly millennia away from its mother

plant, Nebbiolo mutates easily and has many clonal variations. Some of Nebiolo's offspring

have even been confused as clones. Its etymology most likely comes from the Latin word, Nebia, which translates to mist, and is also a root word for Nebulis.

Its name could have come from the white misty bloom that forms on the grapes before

harvest or from the mist that rise from the Tenaro River around harvest time.

Much like its namesake, the details of where it originated are a bit foggy. There is a mention of Neboel in 1266,

and it is certain that Neboelu was popular in the Lange at least by the 1430s and probably much earlier.

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