IN THE WORLD of sparkling wine, Champagne rules supreme. Champagne drinkers often are not even willing to consider non-French sparklers. The Ferrari sparkling wines made in Trento, Italy (no connection to the famous car maker in Modena), however, can be compared with the greatest Champagnes of Marne and Reims and are, in my opinion, the greatest sparkling wines made in Italy.
The history of the Ferrari winery dates back to 1902, when Giulio Ferrari, at the young age of twenty-three, started producing sparkling wines in his hometown of Trento. (It is interesting to note that Trento, until 1918, the end of World War I, was part of the Habsburg Empire. So in effect, the winery was born under the rule of the Austro-Hungarians.) Guilio was a well-rounded, determined young man, who spent time in various French wine regions and studied enology in Montpellier—a rare decision for his time. Returning to his native Trento, Guilio applied the knowledge and skills he learned abroad to growing chardonnay, a typical French grape variety, in Italy. His intuition and understanding led him to plant the noble varietal in the mountainous areas of Trentino, which allowed him to make wines with great breed and character. It was these early efforts of vinification and careful selection of varietals that began to cause Trentino’s star to shine in the enological world.
Giulio’s intuition did not stop at the chardonnay grape, as he also had a vision of the future and began looking for a partner who would be able to sell wines from an unknown area in a commercial market. That man was Bruno Lunelli, an important wine salesman who had become enchanted with Ferrari and the wines from Trento. Beginning the collaboration in the 1950s, Bruno was able to develop this little prewar winery into a modern, prolific, state-of-the-art wine company. Bruno was also able to place the wine throughout the enotecas (wine cellars) and restaurants of Italy by creating the new category of Italian sparkling wines. Ferrari wines, branded and molded after their French counterparts, were until recently referred to as champenoise—a term that has been replaced with metodo classico because of conflicts with European branding laws.
The Ferrari winery is now in its third generation, managed by Bruno’s sons, who have entered into the family fold and continue the tradition of making great sparkling wines. In just fifty years’ time, Ferrari has gone from a small family winery to a global leader with its products, thanks to the winery’s obsessive commitment to making quality sparkling wines at all price points. In fact, Ferrari is one of those rare examples of an Italian winery that owes its overall success to a confluence of many factors. It is omnipresent and clearly the market leader; it has high production (7 million bottles in 2009) but maintains a high level of value. Ferrari has also become a beacon for wine production for the entire region of Trento because of how it manages relationships with grape farmers. In contrast to the traditional buy-sell market driven by grower-buyer relationships, Ferrari’s philosophy is to become intimately involved with the grape growers, providing them with technological and viticultural expertise but, most important, paying them above-market prices, as they recognize that the farmers are the foundation of any great winemaking ambition.
Giulio Ferrari Riserva is made of 100 percent chardonnay grapes, and if we were in Champagne, it would be called a blanc de blanc. The chardonnay grapes that are used to make “Il Giulio,” as the wine is affectionately called by its many admirers, are grown in one select vineyard called Maso Pianizza. This cru is located in the comune of Trento, at an altitude of 1,600 to 2,000 feet, with a south-southwest exposure. With this altitude and exposure, the vines are able to bask in the gentle late-afternoon sunsets, which offer intense luminosity and a gentle, extended day of sunshine. The harvest begins in late September when the grapes have the proper level of acidity and aromatic peak. The challenge in growing chardonnay for great sparkling wines is the inherent balance between retaining acidity and achieving maturity. Acidity gives sparkling wines their structure and backbone, but ripeness contributes delicacy and finesse. The unique alpine microclimate of Trento allows these grapes to achieve both these targets. The grape-growing regions of Trento, located on the foothills of the northern Italian Alps, benefit from temperature variance. In the day, you have a continental climate with daytime highs, and at night, you have an alpine cooling effect. The dramatic changes in the temperature result in chardonnays that are aromatic, yet highly structured and complex. The soil is rocky, unfertile, and unproductive, allowing for viticulture of great concentration and depth of flavor.
In the Italian enological landscape, Giulio Ferrari stands alone. Inspired by the long-standing tradition of Krug and Cristal, Giulio Ferrari is released only after ten years of slow aging, with the longest contact with the lees of any Italian sparkling wine. The base wine for metodo classico is chardonnay that is fermented then aged in barriques, after which it is bottled to await secondary fermentation, which takes place in the bottle. The second fermentation is the defining moment for a metodo classico, when residual sugars, acted upon by yeast, continue to ferment in the bottle until the wine becomes completely dry (all the sugar is fermented in alcohol). The bubbles (bolicini) captured in the wine are a by-product of the in-bottle fermentation. At this point the wine is disgorged (opened to removed dead yeast sediment and add the dosage) and corked with a final closure. It’s then ready for additional aging. Extended cellar time allows the wine to come to completion and harmonizes its many olfactory and tactile sensations. It is amazing that a wine of such power, structure, and vigorous vinification can also express such delicacy and finesse.
The wine has an elegant perlage (tiny bubbles) with delicate mousse. On the nose, the wine shows notes of honeydew melon, ripe peaches, hazelnuts, and bergamot, but also hints of yeast, lavender, orange blossoms, and musk. It is fresh and creamy on the palate and draws you in for a second taste with its delicacy and harmony. The true essence of Giulio Ferrari comes to fruition after time in the cellar, where the more obvious sensations develop into subtleties of a world-class sparkling white wine. It is certainly worth tasting some of the legendary vintages, such as 1983, 1986, and 1989, which might convince even the most skeptical Champagne lover of Italy’s ability to produce great sparkling wine.
AN ANCIENT ESTATE, Tenuta San Leonardo is where a wine was first successfully made in the Bordeaux style—a wine that yet manages to be an utterly clear expression of what can only be Italian terroir. A fascinating creation, San Leonardo wine is a surprise for an Italian wine and is truly a gem of Italian winemaking.
The Italian city of Avio isn’t much more than a pit stop on the busy autostrada that leads from Lake Garda up to the mountains toward Brenner Pass and the center of Europe. However, for many years now, the city has become well known among Italian wine lovers. Avio is home to one of the most beautiful wine estates in all of Italy, Tenuta San Leonardo. Made in the blending tradition of great Bordeaux, San Leonardo, the winery’s flagship wine, is a beacon of classic winemaking and style in the Italian landscape.
The estate is rich in history and inspiration. A monastery was constructed shortly after A.D. 1000, precisely where the heart of the wine cellar now stands. Queen Theodelinda and Authari, king of the Lombards, were married here, and Prince Philip, son of Emperor Charles V, stayed at the monastery in 1549 on his way from Ratisbon to a political meeting regarding the fate of Europe. In more recent years, Austria asked for an armistice at the estate during World War I, and during World War II, the Germans set up their counterspy headquarters at the Tenuta.
However, the name most closely linked to Tenuta San Leonardo is without a doubt Guerrieri Gonzaga. This noble family has owned the estate since 1784 and has transformed it into what it is today: a spectacular villa surrounded by a park of age-old trees and 740 acres of land, 50 acres of which are planted with grapes, and an entire medieval hamlet. The estate is open to the public and is a truly peaceful place to escape for the day. In fact, few other places in Italy highlight the beauty of the winemaking process more than Tenuta San Leonardo. The winery helped to revive the entire Trentino region enologically, which historically was overlooked by much of the wine world. In this area, even more so than in others, the phylloxera plague devastated local wine production, causing most of the farmers who resisted emigration to change profession. Those who remained faithful to winemaking were forced to undertake new roads and techniques.
Carlo Guerrieri Gonzaga, the current owner of the estate, was forced to reinvent a tradition and did so with great courage and foresight. Thirty years ago, he decided to focus on growing international grape varieties. His idea was not to dishonor the native varieties like marzemino, teroldego, and lambrusco, but to produce top-quality wines. To rebuild his family’s devastated vines he needed to introduce grapes imported from France at the beginning of the twentieth century. Carlo Guerrieri Gonzaga’s project was clear, yet rash at the same time: He wanted to re-create Haut Médoc in the middle of Trentino, using the same grapes (cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, and merlot) and the same winemaking methods while seeking to make the same wines in terms of quality. In just a few years, his project was complete: San Leonardo, the signature wine of the estate, is clearly a Bordeaux-style wine. Yet the goal was never to make a classically French wine in Italy, but to give the French grapes the stamp of Trentino. Drinking San Leonardo is not like a trip to Bordeaux. It is like visiting Trentino, a place that has been carefully cared for by people who have given it new traditions and where the words “new” and “old” exist in perfect harmony. We can say that Tenuta San Leonardo is the most Italian château and that San Leonardo is the most French of the authentically Italian wines.
Tenuta San Leonardo is an old hamlet located on the left bank on the Adige River, the second-longest river in Italy, running from Trentino down through Verona and continuing out into the Adriatic Sea. The province of Verona and the Lagarina Valley, which borders Lake Garda and the Lessini Mountains, is rich with vitcultural history, not all of which has been pleasant. The phylloxera plague irreversibly changed the land and the winemaking traditions of the region. Beginning in the twentieth century, farmers began to plant cabernet (both sauvignon and franc) and merlot, as well as chardonnay and pinot noir. Here in this area, the cabernet and merlot grapes, classically associated with Bordeaux, outperformed the Burgundy varietals because of the clayey, occasionally sandy soil. A good number of the wines produced here are particularly rich in anthocyanins, which contribute to the polymerization, or stability, of the wine. After one year of aging, these wines reach anthocyanin levels of 50 percent, versus 35 to 40 percent in Bordeaux, or versus the Italian average of 30 percent. The Guerrieri Gonzaga family has promoted the characteristics of the wines produced in Avio throughout Italian institutions and beyond. The denomination “Campi Sarni” is an additional label used to distinguish between these wines.
Few wineries represent their wine the way Tenuta San Leonardo does San Leonardo. The wine was first produced in the early 1980s by the celebrated Italian enologist Giacomo Tachis. Together with Carlo Guerrieri Gonzaga, Tachis employed the “60-30-10” approach used in the old wineries of Avio: The numbers are the respective percentages of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, and merlot, which went into the first vintages of the wine and became the calling card of San Leonardo. If the vintage is less than par, the wine is not released, as was the case in 1984, 1989, 1992, 1998, and 2002.
The average age of the vines is now around thirty years, with the oldest plants growing next to the newer, experimental vines. The grapes are trained using both the Guyot and cordone speronato systems at 2,000 to 2,500 plants per acre, with an annual yield of 11,000 to 13,200 pounds. Harvested between September and October, the grapes are then destemmed and softly crushed. The three types of grape are fermented separately and left to macerate on the lees and are punched down daily. After aging in large vats, the three types of grapes are moved to separate, previously used French barriques, where they remain for twenty-four months. Immediately before bottling, the three cultivars undergo a careful examination, barrique by barrique, and are then blended together. Carlo Ferrini, another recognized enologist, oversees the entire process, including the eighteen-month aging of the bottles before release.
San Leonardo has a dark, deep ruby red color with hints of garnet. Its perfumes are intense, crisp, and distinctive, comprising spices, berries, and the classic “green” notes of the French varietals. In the mouth, the wine is full, round, warm, and extremely elegant. Its structure is never overbearing; rather it is mild, elegant, and noble. San Leonardo has a long finish and can be described as a rare jewel, destined to sparkle for years to come.