Winter is nebbiolo’s season. We’re talking an old-fashioned winter – a winter when pipes freeze, rivers threaten to breach levees, fog settles in like a cat curled up in front of the fireplace, refusing to budge. That’s the kind of winter that calls for venison sausages braised in wine, meatballs in a goulash sauce, Irish stew with dumplings heavy on the beef suet.

And alongside such hearty fare a glass of hefty red wine, like Barolo or Barbaresco from Piemonte in northern Italy, the most aggressive, layered and enduring wines made from the small but potent black grape nebbiolo.