It’s a special moment in the hills of Conegliano Valdobbiadene, you can smell the scent of ripe grapes in the air. It is the season in which the most awaited event of the year is celebrated: the harvest.

In this article we will see where the centuries-old practice of wine production starts, a complex art that blends tradition and innovation and that implies a deep knowledge of the terroir, climate and care of the grape. And it is right here, in the vineyards, that everything begins.

THE PROSECCO HILLS OF CONEGLIANO AND VALDOBBIADENE

The Prosecco hills of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2019, offer ideal conditions for the cultivation of Glera grape, the vine used for the production of Prosecco Superiore DOCG. The collection of the "golden fruit" varies from vineyard to vineyard depending on the geological and climatic characteristics of the terroir. Thanks to their experience, winemakers are able to judge when the grapes are ripe and ready to be harvested.

HAND HARVEST

A distinctive feature of Conegliano Valdobbiadene DOCG is that the harvest, due to the type of territory, mostly hilly with steep slopes, is done by hand. This allows us to select only the most healthy and ripe bunches. Among the rows, the teams of harvesters work meticulously cutting the bunches that are placed in baskets and transported quickly to the cellar. It is essential to avoid the grapes get too much sun and heat up, otherwise it could start a spontaneous fermentation that would be very difficult to control.

The harvest in Conegliano Valdobbiadene is much more than a simple grape picking: it is an exciting and fascinating ritual that is part of our history and our culture, it is a moment of contact between generations in which the elders passionately transmit their wine-making wisdom to the youngest. In the harvest are collected not only the fruits of nature but also those of the work, commitment and sacrifice of a whole year.

The new vintage is coming to life.

In the next article you will find out how.

How should bottles of Prosecco Superiore DOCG, and sparkling wines in general, be stored? Are there any particular rules to follow? We can say immediately that, in principle, the steps we take to care for a good Conegliano Valdobbiadene are the same as we should take for a fine Soave or an austere Barolo. What matters is to preserve the quality of the wine so that when it arrives at our table it is in the best possible condition. And to achieve this it is necessary to pay attention to 3 fundamental questions. Let’s have a look.

Exposure to light

The number 1 enemy for all wines is exposure to light, primarily natural daylight but also artificial. This is because ultraviolet light (UV) and the heat that this transmits will inevitably, over time, alter the organoleptic properties of wine.
It happens to everyone buying a bottle at the last minute from the supermarket, only to find in their glass an exhausted, lifeless yet still not oxidized wine... In 90% of cases you can thank the light from the spotlights above the shelf.

The green colour of most bottles provides some real protection. However, it is of little use if we are in the habit of keeping the wine well exposed in the kitchen, perhaps on top of a cupboard.

Changeable temperature

When wine isn’t kept in a sufficiently stable environment damage is inevitable. In fact, too high a temperature accelerates the evolution of wine, while too low a temperature slows it down. Sudden, wide fluctuations of temperature simply destroy it. The ideal temperature for wine storage ranges from 12° to 16° C, but we can still get a good result if the environment remains constant between 20° and 22° C.

In the case of sparkling wines the question is aggravated by the fact that the external temperature affects the internal pressure of the wine. That's why, especially in summer, some bottles could burst. It also happens in wine bars and shops, not only at home!

Lack of humidity

It is certainly not a coincidence that the majority of bottles on the market have cork stoppers. In addition to being a perfectly natural material, cork has 2 fundamental characteristics. Despite being impermeable to liquids, and not allowing leakage, it is at the same time permeable to air. Through the gradual and reduced passage of oxygen into the bottle a wine can evolve in a slow but constant way. That's why we can drink a great, aged red wine even 30 years after the vintage!

However, care must be taken. If the environment too dry the cork shrinks and leads to wine oxidation. On the contrary, if it is too humid we will have other problems; for example, moulds and bad smells that alter the taste of the wine (including the infamous “corked” wine).
The ideal humidity range is from 50% to 80%.

Where and how to keep the wine?

The ideal, you know, would be to have a wine cellar maintained at a constant temperature and humidity. But how many of us can afford that? The garage is a good alternative, on condition, however, that it’s not used for car parking or for seasoning cheeses and cold cuts of meat. Wine is much more sensitive than you might think to odours, and absorbs them into its own olfactory spectrum.

Small racks of shelves can be bought quite cheaply. They have the advantage of taking up little space, while having the capacity to contain a good number of bottles. White and sparkling wines must be placed at low level, where the temperature is cooler and closer to that of consumption.

If we do not have a garage or a room that can be sufficiently aerated, we can use an old wardrobe and line it with expanded polystyrene. It’s an economical solution that guarantees good results; the temperature is quite constant and the exposure to light is almost zero.

Whatever the environment we choose for long-term wine storage, we should keep in mind that the bottles should always be kept horizontally. In this way the cork will always remain in contact with the wine, and won’t dry out or shrink. However, for a limited time, no more than 12 months, sparkling wine bottles, therefore, also Conegliano Valdobbiadene DOCG, can remain vertical. The internal pressure and the presence of carbon dioxide, in fact, will ensure the cork is sufficiently humid, preserving it from unwanted ingression.

Before uncorking, however, we should always have the foresight to stand the bottle upright for a few hours; any sediments, which could alter the visual aspect of the wine, will be deposited at the bottom.

If we follow these simple but essential suggestions, as the Beatles would say in “Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite”, a splendid time is guaranteed for all!

What are we referring to when we talk about a “great wine”? For many the question can easily be answered: a wine is “great” when it displays a “pedigree” that qualifies it as such. And this pedigree can be inferred by its awards, reviews by acclaimed critics extolling its excellence, its ratings in trade publications and, however paradoxical it may seem, from the price in the wine shop.

But is this really always the case, come what may? In our opinion, no. While not dismissing the importance of informed, specialized critique, it seems to us that an evaluation based on such standardized criteria, cloaked in presumed objectivity, only partially reveals the greatness of a product. The risk is to level the taste and restrict the pleasure of drinking well on levels of absoluteness. That may greatly satisfy the market, but it will never convey the complexity of a region, an area, a professionalism that does not necessarily chase great prizes at all costs in order to be able to stand out.

Wine is not a product like any other.

For example, with red wines there is an almost obsessive pursuit for concentration, the density of the wine, being aged in oak barrels, etc., even when not needed. The result is that often, thanks to cellar techniques, (which are, by no means, discreditable in themselves), prestigious wines can be produced even from vines considered not particularly “important”. They can be very far from their original characteristics, betraying features that, when expressed, could lead to results of absolute value if not excellence.

Wines understood in this way, and this applies equally to white wines, run the risk of being only products conceived for consumption, reliable and as free from surprises as possible. They meet the taste of the public at any price but the quality of a wine, the real one, is another story...

The ageing capacity of a wine is not a qualitative criterion.

There are wines destined for ageing, while others are for consumption within a year of production. For some this is itself already a qualitative criterion, even before being objective. It is legitimate to raise doubts about the validity of a criterion that not only guides the choice of purchase, but also tends to establish a hierarchy of values.

To make a comparison, the terms must be homogeneous. Comparing a Barolo to a Chianti makes no more sense than comparing a Beethoven symphony to a Beatles song; we are talking about very different things. The only thing they have in common is the fact that they are music. Just as Champagne and Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore have in common the fact that they are wines. Nothing else. But each one, when made well, gives us unique sensations, absolutely incomparable to the other. Their diversity is their real strength, the joy of all enthusiasts. The problem is that more and more often you risk coming across wines that, regardless of their origin, all look a bit alike...

And this is where we have to start. A wine is the result of many things – peculiarities of the land, direction of exposure of the vineyard to the sun, type of vine cultivated, ways of growing the vine, type of harvest, winemaking tradition of the winemakers, choices of the producer, history of the cellar and so on...

Territorial characteristics. Here is the set the values we are looking for.

It is a term that is often willingly and indiscriminately abused. However, if it is brought back to its most authentic meaning it maintains its irreducible value. Because, in the end, this is what it is. What we want to taste in a wine is its genuineness, its belonging to a culture, to an expressive profile that makes a wine unmistakable. That which the wine maker, in his constant search for quality, pursues every day. Here lies real greatness, beyond prizes, beyond fashion. Here lies the real satisfaction that each of us gets from tasting a good bottle of wine.

As Sandro Sangiorgi, a refined critic and great communicator, wrote more than 20 years ago, “in an era in which the prevailing tendency is to standardize and order everything in reassuring hierarchies, wine appears by its very nature to escape, to rebel against this classification logic.”

Holy words. Today more than ever.

In the previous article we saw how we get from the freshly harvested grapes to the must, Prosecco Superiore DOCG in its rawest state. As you may remember, the whole process takes place in a few minutes. These are a few crucial minutes that, if badly managed, can permanently compromise the quality of the wine.

But there is a fundamental rule to always keep in mind. To create a good wine, be it red, white, still or sparkling, there is only ever one decisive question – the basic quality of the raw material. If this is not there, if the grapes are not healthy, if the vineyard has not been worked correctly during the year, there is no well-known winemaker or cellar techniques that can make up for it.

First filtration and first fermentation

The must, obtained from the soft pressing and rich in impurities, is subjected to a first filtration by introducing nitrogen into the tank. Nitrogen is an inert gas that does not affect the substance of the wine in any way, and serves to separate the lees from the must. The lees rise upwards to form a thick layer of residue, (a cap, as they say in the jargon), which will then be removed.

Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore, like all wines of the type, is characterized by a double fermentation. The first fermentation of the purified must takes place now. This phase lasts about ten days, always at a controlled temperature. The use of selected yeasts inserted into the tank allows the wine to carry out its first important evolution in a correct way. Without these technical precautions, the wine would be unpredictable, difficult to manage and, above all, the aromatic component would be inevitably compromised.

The creation of the base

Although having been separated from the coarser lees, the wine is further filtered, (clarified), to become the basis of the future Prosecco Superiore. Since more sparkling wines are made during the year and therefore more bottlings, the base wine can stay in these tanks from September to the following December.

This is possible because the wine, being always kept at a constant temperature, is no longer “working”; it is still. Since not all the bases evolve in the same way, it will be the oenologist who periodically checks the tanks, with specific tests, from September onwards. Depending on the results the oenologist will decide which base to use for sparkling wine.

The second filtration takes about 3 days. During this time a mixture is prepared with selected yeasts, wine and sugar, the purpose of which is to "help" activate the yeasts reaching the autoclave where the second fermentation will take place. The compound is of vital importance because without sugar the yeasts could not release carbon dioxide. And without carbon dioxide we could not have bubbles.

The Difference between Cuvée and Cru

Despite the cultivation entirely of Glera and being situated in the DOCG area, each vineyard differs from the others with regard to soil morphology, sun exposure, slope of the land and territorial location. To maximize the richness of the single terroir (which we will sense in the wine), all the bases from a given vineyard are vinified separately.

The different bases, carefully selected by the oenologist, are then assembled and made sparkling in a single autoclave. The famous “cuvée” is none other than this: different bases blended together to create a single wine. This is why sometimes you can see differences between bottles of the same product coming from the same cellar; each cuvée, within certain limits, tells its own story.

However, when the grapes come from a single particularly valuable vineyard, (the famous cru, which we already talked about last time), the relative base will be sparkling in purity; i.e. without addition of bases from outside that particular terroir. In addition to Cartizze, the other crus for Conegliano Valdobbiadene are the so-called “Rive” that you can find on our shop online.

A second coclusion

Bottling and, above all, the pleasure of tasting have not yet been explored; these will be covered in our next article. However, we can already draw a first fundamental conclusion: in the creation of a great wine, the passion and professionalism of those who make it are taken for granted. Each phase is one step in a broad and complex process and each, in its own way, is decisive.

The strength and elegance of Prosecco Superiore Sommariva Brut are the soul of a sparkling wine
conceived in the land, born from work and grown from experience.

Some wines, perhaps more than others, know how to reveal their identity from the first sip. They exhibit the trait of a vintage in a nuance of color, offer a taste of a lucky balance of a season in a more or less blunt acidity tip, in the intensity of the aromas and finally they know how to reveal the paternity of the territory through the density of the body, an imperfection or an unmistakable characteristic feature.
Our Prosecco Superiore Brut, with its stength  and natural elegance, is a wine that knows how to tell about itself and its territory starting from the aspect that most identifies it, the minerality.

SON OF A IRON- RICH -SOIL

The Prosecco Superiore Sommariva Brut is the son of an iron-rich- soil which, in addition to giving the characteristic mineral scent to the wine, determines the reddish color so identifying some stretches of the soil of the territory of San Pietro di Feletto, having given the name to the hill on which our winery stands, Palazzo Rosso. The iron rich ground is nothing more than a geological formation born from the karst phenomenon of the erosion of the river waters that flowing over the centuries on this part of the territory has washed away from the soil above all the calcareous substances leaving only the mineral ones in evidence.

Our vineyards have their roots in these vast banks of red earth, absorbing mineral microparticles; the traits of the genetic patrimony that are renewed every year with the process of vegetation of the vine and the interaction with the microclimate complete the process giving the Prosecco Superiore Sommariva Brut that odorous shade of chalk and dust that we identify as minerality.
It is in this very particular land, therefore, that the personality of our wine is conceived. A heterogeneous and unique hilly system in which the ancient flow of waters has shaped deep gorges and gentle plateaus, bringing out rocky protuberances and giving life to lush woods that create different microclimate bands in which the vine responds in a different way. It is only up to man's experience to reap the fruits and enhance them according to their values and vision.

FROM THE EARTH TO MAN

From earth to man, the circle closes. If it is true that a wine is born in the earth by interacting with the natural factors of the place, it is also true that man has the duty to do everything possible to create the right conditions for this to happen. With our work we accompany our Prosecco Superiore Brut to birth, with care for each vintage. Over time we have chosen the right Glera clones for the clayey and morainic soil of this plateau, so fertile and deep; we have identified the right exposure of the vineyards to the sun so that there were hours of light and the heat necessary to ripen the grapes; we have experimented with farming systems capable of containing yields and vegetation and that prevent or limit the damage caused by spring frosts or too cold winds. The rest is a simple observation of how the vine interacts with the whole pedo-climatic system of this area, forging its own character naturally, intervening as little as possible, where possible, in the precarious seasonal balance.
From the earth to man, we draw on our experiences to give birth to a Prosecco Superiore Brut with a straightforward and genuine character. A careful and respectful process that takes the right time to grow a sparkling wine with a bright color, fresh and vibrant aromas, a full and harmonious body, an expressive chiaroscuro that redeems a personality that reveals its clear territorial origin.

Migliori Vini Italiani by Luca Maroni rewards ours Prosecco Superiore, the quality and authenticity of a territory inimitable heritage of humanity.

For every wine producer, large or small, the exams never end. First of all there is our work, then there is the market in which to navigate avoiding the rocks, the tastes of consumers to keep an eye on and in their midst, the experts, skilled tasters with whom to deal with that with their experience and ability mediate between us and the world by translating our vision, our efforts and our passion into words and scores. Many well-known names that give life to as many competitions, guides, rankings in the first rows of which everyone aspires to read the name of their wines. That of Luca Maroni and his Annuario dei Migliori Vini italiani is undoubtedly among the first on this list

L'ANNUARIO DEI MIGLIORI VINI ITALIANI

The Annuario dei Migliori Vini italiani is an annual report on the wine production of the best Italian companies drawn up by Luca Maroni, a reference point for wine experts and lovers, which sees among its most important characteristics respect for the reader and the innovative method by which the wines in competition are judged.
Sensory analyst of wine, journalist, writer, teacher, Luca Maroni is undoubtedly one of the most famous wine connoisseurs in the world. But beyond the editorial and media successes, he remains a great lover of wine, so much so that he wanted to make his own personal contribution to the method of evaluating the quality of wine by devising a new one, an almost mathematical but simple and objective model, with which he analyzes hundreds of wines every year to compile the yearbook.
According to the method devised by Luca Maroni to determine the quality of a wine, three of the parameters used in sensory analysis deserve more attention. The first is the consistency of the wine, that is the richness in extracts, all the components that make wine different from water so to speak. The second is the balance of flavor, that is the balance and harmony of the components of freshness and softness. The third is integrity, that is, respect for the organoleptic characteristics during the processing of the grapes, each wine must be the mirror of the characteristics of its territory and of the vintage.
The more balanced, whole and rich a wine is, the higher its quality or pleasantness index will be, because "The pleasantness of wine is an effect whose cause is its analytical and sensorial compositional quality".

THE SCORE

The score with which Luca Maroni in his Annuario dei Migliori Vini Italiani 2021 rewards ours production of Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore:

The added value of our Prosecco Superiore is sustainability placed at the center of a production model that maximizes resources and respects the environment

Producing a Prosecco Superiore that combines sustainability and quality means knowing how to combine some typical if not exclusive aspects of viticulture. On the one hand there are the highly subjective factors that bind man to the vine: the experience, the traditions that are handed down, the sense of attachment to one's own territory and finally the characteristics of the latter that are reflected on the vine and wine.
On the other hand, there is the objective data of the markets, the commitment to offer one's wine at its best so that the various interlocutors can appreciate it, understand it and express an opinion on the production methods, on the techniques but above all to evaluate how all our work can interact with the environment and what impact this can have on the quality of the wine. The adoption of sustainable processing methods therefore represent today an important discriminant in the choice of wine since it emphasizes the attention to the conscious use of increasingly limited environmental resources and the desire to give our customers excellent quality. And this is a fundamental value for us.

Sustainability is thought and action

Sustainability is thought and action
Among the various definitions of the word sustainability, the one that most guides us speaks of a global commitment that leads to a development model that can guarantee a better quality of life, social, economic and environmental. How to contribute to this cause? The starting point is to understand that acting sustainably is a capacity that is acquired through education and practice: a thought that transforms itself into a way of being. But the thought that is formed must start from the founding columns of our being: values. The social values of legality and solidarity, those for taking care of the things we love, and those more difficult to honor than respect for the environment and the ethical use of the planet's available natural resources. Our values are the result of our history and our personal choices. Only by keeping them alive can we direct our thinking and actions towards building a better world.

Integrated quality

Integrated and sustainable quality thus becomes our thinking which becomes action through adherence to the National Quality System of Integrated Production, a voluntary program of defense and integrated production aimed at identifying and certifying all those products obtained in compliance with strict protocols that provide for binding indications about agronomic and phytosanitary practices, limitations to the use of synthetic products and to the treatments and traceability systems of wines.
The goal is to strengthen our production model over time, a model that acts according to agronomic techniques that take into account the specific needs and limits of each individual vineyard, foreseeing the consequences that our interventions could have on the environment and on the quality of the vineyard our Prosecco Superiore trying at the same time not to lose our identity, rather strengthening it through the enhancement of our history, our culture and our territory.