Many of Alto Piemonte’s once famous vineyards were abandoned in the age of urban migration, when farmers throughout Italy left their farms behind in search of a better life in Turin or Milan. Francesco Brigatti’s grandfather was a rare fellow who went the other way, starting a family farm in 1920 outside the town of Suno in the heart of the Colline Novaresi, where snow-capped Alps limn the horizon. Two generations later, Francesco continues the work. In the 1950s, when southern Piedmontese wine became famous, the north remained out of the limelight, so grapes like Uva Rara persisted in cheerful obscurity. It is a grape with rare intensity and complexity, and Brigatti’s version is one of very few examples of it. Most Uva Rara is used to support Nebbiolo based blends, but on its own, we find a sharp-edged nose of raspberry fruit leather, blueberry-huckleberry compote, red clay, cinnamon, and black roses. We find a palate bursting at the seams with black raspberries and currants and clay and pepper, buzzing with acidity and framed by tannins that build, sip after sip, towards the finish where a hint of fennel lingers with the fruit. This is a Platonic pair with any sort of charcuterie board, but it will also do justice to butternut squash, roasted chicken, or bechamel pasta bakes.