Franciacorta: Lombardy's fashionable fizz

Franciacorta : Lombardy's fashionable fizz Milan is the heart of Italian fashion design, and long after the catwalks have closed for another season glamour continues to ooze out of its streets and beyond the city limits. [subscriber-content]Less than an hour’s drive away, visitors at the Festival d’Estate Franciacorta effortlessly pull off a fashion miracle: looking stylish while wearing a glass on a string around the neck.On an unusually hot June day, dance music that sounds like it could have come straight from an Ibiza chill-out album provides the soundtrack.There are hundreds drinking Franciacorta under an unrelenting sun, yet the gorgeous young crowd is impeccably behaved: it’s a tasting festival with taste. Those attending the Lombardy Franciacorta festival are young, classy and elegant – not unlike the region’s sparkling wines. Last year was the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Franciacorta DOC in 1967, the result of a collaboration between 11 producers in the region. Back then the designation also included red and white still wines, with the sparkling wines getting a DOCG in 1995. Its makers are keenly aware that they don’t have a storied past, filled with tales of 17th-century monks tasting stars in their Champagne. But that’s not to say that wine production suddenly emerged from the deep blue waters of local Lake Iseo either. In 1570 a local doctor wrote a book which mentioned fizzy wines and, in a land registry of 1809, commercial vineyards covered nearly 1,000ha while another 6,000ha were devoted to growing fruit and grapes for personal consumption. Wine production has been here for centuries, but visionary individuals, including Franco Ziliani, Guido Berlucchi and Maurizio Zanella, set Franciacorta on its sparkling course in the 1960s and 1970s. [caption id="attachment_382960" align="alignnone" width="650"] Credit: Decanter / Maggie Nelson[/caption] Lay of the land Despite its relatively short history in producing sparkling wine, the dramatic and beautiful scenery that shapes the Franciacorta denominazione owes its form to ancient glaciers advancing and retreating, carving the area’s landscape. ‘We are very young as a sparkling wine region – and have lots to learn to improve our product – but from a geological point of view we are very old,’ says Stefano Capelli, winemaker Ca’ del Bosco. Vines converge at the southern tip of Lake Iseo, a 25km-long lake enclosed by peaks that ascend dramatically within metres of the shoreline. This sub-alpine plateau gives visitors a taste of what’s to come in the Alps proper, which come into view at the north end of the water. Not only did the glacial movements carve a lake that reaches depths of up to 250m, but it also left behind varied unfertile, stone-laced soils that provide the setting for growing Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc vines. This Italian lake, however, doesn’t share the fame of Garda, and it doesn’t have the celebrity residents of Como. Locals admit that many Italians struggle to point out where Franciacorta is located, beyond ‘the north of Italy’. Camilla Alberti, vice-president of Strada del Franciacorta, the area’s tourism association, explains: ‘The fact is that no one outside Italy knows where Franciacorta is.’ The most common explanation of its whereabouts is in relation to other cities: about 45 minutes’ drive from the shopping mecca of Milan or a similar distance to Verona; it’s also only 30 minutes from both Bergamo and Brescia. The region is associated with industry: steel, iron and brick works. [caption id="attachment_382955" align="alignnone" width="650"] The late-ripening Erbamat grape has a thick skin but is susceptible to botrytis.[/caption] The past and the present are embodied in the cellars of Contadi Castaldi. Built in 1880, the tunnels housing its slumbering wines and pupitres were the kilns for firing bricks until 1965, largely abandoned until 1987 when the site became the present-day winery’s cellars. While the region might not have the vast network of underground cellars that Reims boasts, it’s unlikely that the winemakers of Franciacorta will ever need such storage capacity. The wine region is small and, explains Vittorio Moretti, president of the Consorzio Franciacorta wine association, production is finite: ‘We can never make more than 20 to 25 million bottles.’ Compare that to Champagne with sales of more than 300 million bottles, and Cava at 245 million bottles and you can see that it isn’t set to be a sparkling wine behemoth. What it does have is the ability to make fine wines based on Chardonnay, with Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc in a supporting role. Located some 900km to the south of Champagne, the climate is clearly warmer than in northern France, with sparkling wine harvests normally taking place in August – inconvenient for wine producers who have children to look after during Italy’s impossibly long school holidays. However with the introduction of a new (but old) indigenous variety in 2017, getting the kids back to the classroom before the harvest begins might be possible. [breakout] Seductive Satèn Satèn, meaning ‘silk’ in Italian, is unique to the Franciacorta region, and its come-hither style gives it the opportunity to stand out in a crowded wine market. Always produced from Chardonnay, Satèn is unlike other sparkling wines made in Franciacorta – or Champagne for that matter – as it has less pressure in the bottle: five bars compared with six. In order to achieve this, producers add less sugar in the liqueur de tirage: 18-20grams/litre as opposed to 24g/l for fully sparkling wines. The lower level of sugar produces less alcohol and less carbon dioxide during the second fermentation, hence the lower level of pressure. The style is always brut (maximum of 15g/l). The resulting wine is gentle, creamy and – whether or not it is the power of suggestion – silky.[/breakout] Return of the native The new grape in question is Erbamat. It ripens six to eight weeks later than Chardonnay, meaning the harvest will extend into the cooler temperatures of September – that’s of interest to growers with one eye on global warming as well as school terms. It is not in the grape variety bible Wine Grapes, nor does it feature in Ian D’Agata’s Native Wine Grapes of Italy – due to embryonic scientific data about the grape on deadline day, he laments – but watch out for Erbamat in a future edition. ‘Given climate change and the variety’s intrinsic high acidity, it’s bound to become more and more visible, if not downright popular,’ says D’Agata. ‘A number of Franciacorta producers have considerable faith in it, as it offers greater acidic backbone to their wines as well as providing a native, local alternative to another [non-indigenous] higher-acid variety. It’s a little like Oseleta in Veneto’s Valpolicella region, where it has gradually replaced the Cabernets and Merlots as a grape with which to add tannic spine to Valpolicella or Amarone.’ While Erbamat might be a new entrant to the grape Filofax, it has been in Franciacorta since the 15th century, according to historical documents, says Silvano Brescianini, vice- president of the both the consorzio and Barone Pizzini, one of the founding members of the DOC in 1967. In 2017, the grape was handed a new lease of life: it is now a permitted variety in Franciacorta. There’s been a lot of work on the variety since the 1990s at the University of Milan, and it has been reintroduced to the vineyards of some of the leading producers at Lake Iseo. The variety has big bunches, thin skins and is susceptible to botrytis and oidium, according to Brescianini. However, it produces wines low in alcohol and has super-high acidity even at full ripeness, as well as delicate aromatics. All in all, that’s a perfect package for producing sparkling base wines in a changing environment. While there are fewer than 10ha currently planted, according to the consorzio, that’s set to grow: from the 2017 vintage on, the sparkling wines of Franciacorta may contain up to 10% Erbamat in a blend. The region makes no secret that it has export ambitions despite its bijou production. Since becoming a DOCG in 1995, there’s a desire for the sparkling wines to gain international recognition. Moretti, of the Consorzio Franciacorta, explains: ‘The national market is very big and we came to exports very late – we never needed to export, but we want to spread the word.’ Currently exports account for just 10% of total sales, but Moretti says the region’s ambition is to reach between 30% and 40%. Situated close to popular international cities, producers believe that foreign tourism will be at the heart of the region’s success. Luring international visitors away from Lakes Como and Garda to Iseo should be a no-brainer: you don’t have to be a millionaire film star to enjoy the high life in Iseo and, not unlike the wines of the region, it remains something of an undiscovered gem. [/subscriber-content] Franciacorta wines to look for: [wine-collection] Rebecca Gibb MW is an awarded wine writer who also publishes www.rebeccagibb.com You may also like :

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