Piedmontese growers named this grape arneis -- roughly, 'little rascal' -- because it was such a nuisance to farm, and by the 1970s they had all but given up on it. A handful of holdouts saved it from disappearing, and today it's Piedmont's signature white, grown mainly in Roero, just across the Tanaro river from Barolo where the soils turn sandy and the wines turn fragrant. Giovanni Rosso is a red-wine house to its bones, which is precisely why this bottle has no ambition beyond being delicious: pear and white flowers, a chalky almond note, a saline snap at the end. All crunch, no weight, no oak. This is the wine Piedmont pours before the Nebbiolo comes out.