Bollicine in Franciacorta

The name “Champagne” is well-known by most Americans, whereas its’ not the same for “Franciacorta.” Firstly Franciacorta is an area, placed between Lake Iseo and the city of Brescia, in Lombardy; but it is also the name given to the sparkling wines made by the classic method of a second fermentation in bottle.

Franciacorta is an important area of northern Italy, where sparkling wines are made from grapes, grown on the rolling Alpine foothills in vineyards that share gentle slopes with villas, manors, castles, abbeys, farms and livable towns. This zone has a natural aptitude for viniculture: in fact in this region have been found some prehistoric grape seeds. An important contribute to the creation of exceptional wines is also given by the particular climate of Franciacorta: in fact the northern Italian climate is warmer than that of Champagne and is also tempered by the basin of the near Lake Iseo and by the air currents moving from Camonica Valley. Besides the lands of Franciacorta are perfect for grape wines thanks to the presence of the morainic hills (created millions of years ago by the movement of glaciers), which give the ideal soil for viniculture.

Then. . .

Franciacorta wines have an important history: in fact they’re quoted by Pliny the Elder and Virgil and by some documents of the 2nd century B.C. There is also a textual report of 1570, made by Gerolamo Conforti who defined the wine of Franciacorta as “”optimum e mordacissimo (very pungent, biting).”

In ancient times, there were hand-operated wooden screw presses with stone disks to crush the grapes, which then fermented in the terracotta amphora, and eventually in the wooden barrel. Even if the wine produced wasn’t as strong as the wines of southern Italy, the production of them was continued by the monasteries, even after the fall of Rome.

Though barbarian raiders often devastated the monasteries, by the 8th and 9th centuries, the viniculture were kept alive thanks to the reforms of Charlemagne: besides both red and white wines from Franciacorta were being vigorously exchanged for olive oils, salt, and spices from the Liguria region on the Mediterranean side; and by 1227 the name of Franciacorta was already well known. During the 19th century, the area produced 35% more wine than it does today, described by historian Gabriele Rosa as “most excellent, vivacious and gracious.” Lombardy produced 190 distinct grape varieties, but all that ended when the phylloxera, a wine louse, devastated Europe’s vineyard, destroying a lot of local wines. Then in the 20th the two World Wars damaged these lands.

. . .and Now

In the last decades the importance and the quality of Franciacorta wines increased, also because the growers of grapes are younger and dynamic entrepreneurs who have not to refer to any historical tradition and who are opened to innovation and modernity.

The 60s and 70s

In the 1960s, a pioneering young winemaker in Franciacorta, Franco Ziliani, initiated the production of a sparkling wine using the classic method of Champagne, in France, in which a second fermentation occurs in the individual bottles, that are turned upside down and held at an angle for a long time in wooden frames (called pupitres) used for the remuage process that separates the yeasts from the wine in each bottle. Unfortunately this was a very expensive process and in the first attempts it didn’t work because the wine didn’t ferment. Then other producers followed in the 70s, when a spumante could be made either by tank fermentation or by the far costlier refermentation in bottle.

The 80s and 90’s

By the 80s, grape combinations of chardonnay, pinot blanc and pinot noir in different percentages were being used, and the results surprised and attracted the attention of critics, connoisseurs and investors.

Construction magnate Vittorio Moretti was one of those who planted extensive vineyards and thought of it as a financial gamble, figuring that if nothing else, winemaking would be a very pleasant hobby. “But when I realized that we were creating something very special, it became a labor of love,” says Moretti. And from Giovanni Cavalleri, a financier who transformed his family estate into the state-of-the-art winery it is today, “Wine demands more patience than other businesses, but I don’t know of any work that provides greater satisfaction.” Bho? Lo devo lasciare?

At the end of the 1980s saw there were a series of regulations and controls over production and marketing for all Italian wines, but the Franciacorta producers formed a consortium to determine new norms and to reach higher standards. Some of these new norms included self-imposed restrictions requiring dense plantings of vineyards (a minimum of 3,300 plants per hectare since density forces vine roots to compete for space, resulting in lower yields of healthier grapes), a yield per hectare of 10 tons maximum for chardonnay, pinot nero, and pinot bianco, and low, short training of vines (instead of the high espalier system with full exposure to sunlight which would give prolific yields but not grapes of strength and concentration).

After this Franciacorta wine made an important progress, in fact in 1995 it was awarded the highest, most coveted appellation, and was classified as DOCG (Denomination of Controlled and Guaranteed Origin). Besides it was the first Italian brut wine made only through refermentation in bottle to receive this recognition, and what began with only a few thousand bottles annually is now up to 4 million a year.

About those Franciacorta sparklers

The name Franciacorta identifies a territory and its sparkling wine, like Champagne, even if on a smaller scale.

The labels no longer use the generic term vino spumante, nor do they mention the method of production any The designation of Franciacorta DOCG is very important because now the labels don’t use the generic term vino spumante and they don’t mention the method of production: in fact the DOCG classification is enough to show the quality of this wine. DOCG certification also means that each variety of grape and each vineyard of the DOCG area have been harvested separately, after having been cultivated by organic methods. And that the grapes have been picked rigorously by hand and then kept whole in small containers until the time for crushing. The new norms establish the longest and most exacting process of elaboration in bottle of any of the world’s classified sparkling wines.

For example, only the juices from the first two pressings (65% or less of the weight of the grapes) may be used to make the base wines. Each house follows subtle variations in cellar practices, with a few estates still choosing to gently crush the grapes in old-style wooden basket presses and then ferment and mature a portion of the base wines in oak barrels for richness and complexity, while other houses crush the grapes gently in horizontal pneumatic presses. The elite wines of Franciacorta, like the cream of Champagne, are matured for four years, and sometimes longer, to achieve finer and more persistent bubbles, called perlage, and mellower, more harmonious flavors.

Like Bellavista and Ca’ del Bosco, Cavalleri is one of the most famous producers of Franciacorta a player in the world of sparkling wine. It is the wine estate of the Cavalleri family of Erbusco, reported by ancient deeds to be landowners there since 1450. In the beginning of the 20th century, the estate had a cellar for wine production and was still selling red and white wines on the premises and to the area’s renowned restaurants into the 60s when Italian government law created the DOC ( Denomination of Controlled Origin) appellation in 1967.

The family reorganized and rejuvenated, and by 1980, under the leadership of young Giovanni Cavalleri, had built new premises and new cellars in the middle of the family vineyards, just outside the town precincts. Giovanni, president of four financial companies and on the board of directors of a bank when he took over the estate from his father in 1977, not only bore a fervent dedication to his family’s vineyards, but brought entrepreneurial spirit and investment experience.

By the 90s, the Cavalleri vineyards had increased from 10 hectares to 31, which the company believes to be the optimum vineyard size for a low-medium producer (200,000 bottles annually), and had enlarged their new cellar, begun aging wine in barriques, and built gracious, expensively appointed rooms, replete with fine art, for guests and customer wine tastings. They purchased new machinery for soft pressing, steel tanks and refrigeration equipment for musts. They replaced old vineyards with new ones through a wise selection of the clones of the chardonnay vine, fitting both the climate and the soil characteristics of the district, and proving worthy as the pillar and common denominator of Cavalleri’s whites and sparklers.

Cavalleri produced its first 6,000 bottles of Franciacorta in 1979, and by 1982, after 24 months of ripening by the methode champenoise, the result bore character and brilliance right from its debut. Giovanni Cavalleri was on the premises when I was there, hosting from behind the scenes in a hunter green corduroy jacket. With his movie star features and salt-and-pepper hair, he is a very handsome 60-something man who has brought his three daughters into the family business. The average age of the company staff is late thirties, and almost everyone has been with the company since the start of Giovanni’s tenure.

Another big difference between Champagne and Franciacorta is that while the first area is characterized by large-scale merchant houses, the wine houses of Franciacorta, most of them converted from beautiful farms and villas to modern wine estates, are small or medium-sized and they are fewer than 75. Besides Franciacorta DOCG is very unique because its production comes from individual estates that cultivates their own grapes; on the contrary many of the Champagne brands take grapes or wines en masse.

Finally this Italian sparkling wine is also quoted in the book Vino Italiano by Mario Batali, Joseph Bastianich and David Lynch: the authors celebrates the Italian sparklers saying that those “from Franciacorta’s Lombardy region can stand toe-to-toe with Champagne.”

The prized bubbly wines of Franciacorta described by Girolamo Conforti in his scholarly treatise on wines in 1570 were made in barrels and vats, but consider this: If there had been glass bottles strong enough to withstand fermentation pressures at that time, it might have been Franciacorta that arrived first on European markets – 100 years ahead of Champagne!.