Erbaluce di Caluso, also simply called Caluso, is an appellation in northern Piedmont. It was born as a DOC in 1967 and became a DOCG in 2010. It has about 121 hectares, with an output of 6,700 hectolitres, from vineyards between 200 and 500 metres above sea level. The production rules were last updated in 2014.
Erbaluce only
Every wine is made from 100% Erbaluce: the dry white, the Spumante, which spends at least 15 months on the lees, and the Passito, which ages at least 36 months and is released from 1 November of the third year after the harvest; the Passito Riserva reaches 48 months. The minimum alcohol is 11%. The area covers thirty-six communes: thirty-two in the metropolitan city of Turin, among them Caluso, Ivrea, Agliè, Candia Canavese and Mazzè, three in the province of Biella, Roppolo, Viverone and Zimone, and Moncrivello in the province of Vercelli.
From the nymph Albaluce to the sparkling wine
The name is traced back to the Latin Alba lux, and a legend links it to the nymph Albaluce, daughter of the Sun and the Dawn, from whose tears the vine was born. The first historical records date from 1606, when it is mentioned by Giovan Battista Croce, jeweller to Duke Charles Emmanuel I; they are followed by the studies of the Agrarian Society of Turin in 1799 and by Gatta's study of the wines of the province of Ivrea in 1833. The sparkling wine has been made since the Sixties of the 20th century. In the same area the Canavese DOC also provides for a Bianco and a Spumante from Erbaluce alone.