BOLLICINE (“little bubbles,” or sparkling wine in Italian) are the way that Italians celebrate life. Annamaria Clementi is stylistically and quantitatively the pinnacle of sparkling wine enology in Italy. To offer a brindisi (“toast”) with this captivating and rare wine is a celebration of the highest order.
Not only is Ca’ del Bosco one of the most exciting agricultural-based companies in Italy today, the winery is at the heart of an enological phenomenon. As is often the case, the founder of this winery, Maurizio Zanella, is a dreamer. Despite his young age, Maurizio is responsible for the incredible success of a cellar, a denomination, and a style. Located in the middle of what once was a chestnut forest (bosco means “forest” in Italian), Ca’ del Bosco produces 1 million bottles of wine a year from 370 acres of vineyards that are cared for like noble gardens. Today this area, known as Franciacorta, is one of the most prestigious winemaking regions in Europe.
In this corner of northern Italy near Lake Iseo and only 30 miles from Italy’s industrial and financial capital, Milano, you feel as if you could be on the other side of the world. Maurizio’s mother, Annamaria Clementi, had purchased a small farmhouse in Erbusco during the mid-1970s. Little did she know that in just a few years, her son would transform the property into a forward-thinking winery known throughout the world. While he was still very young, Maurizio traveled to France and returned home with a plan: Franciacorta had the morphologic, climatic, and historical characteristics needed to make a new wine region. Beginning in the 1970s, Maurizio Zanella and a group of fellow producers/followers sought to reproduce France’s Champagne region on a much smaller scale. Since Maurizio first planted his vineyards with chardonnay and pinot noir at 4,000 plants per acres, and now with his recent improvements in the cellar, the Ca’ del Bosco has always produced top-quality Italian champenoise-style sparkling wine.
Locally, Franciacorta has come into its own, known, together with Trentino, as the most famous region in Italy for the production of Spumante, or bollicine (because of those “little bubbles”). In contrast to 300 million bottles of Champagne produced in France each year, Franciacorta releases only 10 million botles of Spumante a year. This is still an impressive number, considering how recently Italians started making wine in Franciacorta, the much smaller size of the area, and the constant growth in production. (Production in the region has gone from 2 million to 10 million bottles in just fifteen years.) On the national scale, Franciacorta has become a key player in the vast world of Italian sparkling wine and is even competing with the top white and red still wines. Trentino, the small mountainous region to the northeast of Franciacorta, produces 8 million bottles of Brut a year and has become synonymous with great sparklers like those of Ferrari, perhaps the most famous sparkling wine producer in Italy along with Ca’ del Bosco. In addition, sparkling wines are made in Piemonte (Asti Spumante) and in the Veneto (Prosecco). The former is made with sweet, aromatic moscato grapes and is without a doubt the most famous Italian Spumante in the world. Asti is strong in numbers (over 70 million bottles produced per year), but less so in quality, but still enjoyable. Prosecco, on the other hand, is produced in lesser quantities (40 million bottles per year) and is experiencing great success in recent years, thanks to its price (which is lower on average than other Italian bollicine), to its novelty, and to the seriousness of some Prosecco producers.
In just forty years, Franciacorta has become synonymous with the highest levels of sparkling wine. Although this miracle may seem haphazard at first glance, the revolution was based on the work of a few good men. Maurizio Zanella is credited with having the foresight of what the region would ultimately become. He grew up on the land—following the footsteps of his mother, Annamaria Clementi, to whom he dedicated the company’s top wine—and knows it well. Maurizio also benefited from his admiration for the world’s top sparkling wine producers, especially those of France. In addition, Maurizio arrived at a time when the Italian wine scene was changing, allowing him to experiment with high-quality production techniques.
Franciacorta is an area of soft, rolling hills and is a break from the monotony of the Pianura Padana, a plain divided down the middle by the Milano-Venezia autostrada, a passage of important economic value to northern Italy. Although grapes have been grown in the region for centuries, the vineyards were completely reinvented in the 1960s and ’70s specifically for sparkling wine production. Zanella experimented freely and was able to create a new “bubbly” phenomenon. He decided to focus both on top vineyard management and on employing technology in the cellar, allowing for the birth of a true sparkling wine culture. Despite the name of the territory (and the wines produced there), France (Francia in Italian) has nothing to do with it. The name comes from the Latin term curtes francae, which is the name of the small communities of Benedictine monks established in the High Middle Ages in the hilly area near Lake Iseo. The monks were excused from paying taxes to the lords and the bishop for the transport and sales of their products because they taught farmers how to cultivate the fields.
Annamaria Clementi is the most famous Cuvée made by Maurizio Zanella’s winery. Only the best of his chardonnay (about 50 percent), pinot bianco (25 percent), and pinot nero (25 percent) grapes, harvested from the various crus and only in the best vintages, end up in this symbolic wine. The yield of his vines is 4,900 pounds per acre, and their average age is thirty-eight years. The harvest occurs early in the season, around mid-August. The base wines are made from the alcoholic fermentation of must from a portion of the top grapes (about 40 percent in terms of weight), and this fermentation takes place inside small oak barrels, where the wine rests for about seven months. The best bases, coming from at least ten different selections of must, are blended to make the Cuvée. The wine then spends a long time in the bottle (sometimes many years), in direct contact with the yeasts, in the Zanellas’ spectacular cellar, regulated to be a constant 54 degrees Fahrenheit. At the time of disgorging, 7.5 milliliters of liqueur de tirage is added, giving the wine its almost mystical character.
When opened, a bottle of Annamaria Clementi has an extremely fine, persistent, and continuous perlage. The aromas vary from just-ripe white fruit to white flowers and vanilla, with woody notes that develop into mineral tones. In the mouth, the wine is luxurious, rich in fruit, with good acidity that balances out the wine perfectly. The finish seems endless and irresistibly seductive.
DESCRIPTIONS OF the unusual wines of Valtellina always draw a direct parallel to the subtlety and power of red Burgundy. Like their French counterparts, these wines can be elusive and shy, but when they sing, few others can hold a note in comparison.
Valtellina is a lesser-known wine-producing zone of Italy that is definitely an area worth exploring because it is an extreme viticultural enclave. This mountainous region, located at the northern end of Lake Como, is a captivating place, and it has recently been discovered by international celebrities, including George Clooney, who owns a house there.
As unlikely as it may seem, Valtellina is gaining growing attention not only for its celebrity guests, but for its wine. This region is one of the most difficult places to cultivate grapes because the altitude of the region reaches 2,600 feet; it is covered with steep, sloping hills; and the soil is poor for general agriculture. The winter temperatures are harsh, and the summers are extremely hot. Despite all this, farmers—preceded by a community of monks—have grown grapes at the foothills of the Alps for centuries. They literally built “flying vineyards” on the sides of the mountains, shored up by miles of dry-stone walls. They were able to win a battle against nature, giving life to an important winemaking tradition.
Nino Negri is one of the pioneers of modern viniculture in Valtellina. In 1897, he created a company, based in the small town of Chiuro, that specialized in the sale of locally produced wines. He attributes much of his initial success to his proximity to the wine-friendly Swiss market. A couple of decades later, his son Carlo expanded the company, giving it a more market-driven structure. In the 1960s, the company was sold to Winefood, a Swiss enterprise, which slowed the growth of the brand. Then in 1986, GIV (Gruppo Italiano Vini), the highest-grossing Italian wine company, made up of fifteen Italian wine producers, came to the rescue, buying the estate from the Swiss. Thanks to the financial means and interest of the group, the Nino Negri estate became the pride of Valtellina, and it introduced the world to the two enological strengths of the area: the nebbiolo variety of grapes and the appassimento technique. The first may surprise most Italian wine lovers because the grape is usually associated with the Barolos and Barbarescos produced in Piemonte. However, in Valtellina, nebbiolo grows as well as it does in the Langa. In fact, some people say that the variety originated in Valtellina and was then “lent” to the Piemontese. It is hard to believe that this variety, which has often proved unfruitful outside of northwest Italy, thrives in the harsh habitat of Valtellina, where it is known by the name chiavennasca. In terms of the appassimento technique—an ancient practice of the drying out of the grapes before vinification—Nino Negri was the local winery that officially began this process in modern times. The farmers would commonly leave the grapes on the plant until they were overripe or, better yet, place them into special drying rooms called fruttai, where they would remain until December—sometimes until after Christmas—before being pressed. It is a risky and expensive technique because of the high percentage of loss in the product due to drying out the grapes, but it has made the wines of Valtellina special, giving them a territorial identity and complexity.
Valtellina is a part of the region of Lombardia and is bordered on the north by the Alps. On a clear day, you can see the snow on the Adamello Mountains in the distance. The land is tough, bitter, and at times outright harsh: Italians recall the tragic images of the 1987 avalanche, when a month of torrential downpours turned the valley into a huge lake and led to the death of more than fifty people. Yet the area is beautiful and good to those who treat it with respect, as have the generations of farmers who have lived off the land. The valley spreads from the east to the west and almost seems to follow the sun: The vineyards, all south facing and well protected from the cold winds from northern Europe, get sun and heat for a good part of the day. The results are generally good, but Valtellina has its fair share of problems: A part of the valley is referred to as the Inferno because of the total isolation of the vineyards during certain times of the year. People are hesitant to manage cellars here and in some of the other remote areas of the valley. In addition, water is scarce; it is not uncommon to see the roots of the grapevines sprouting out of the soil and nestling in stone walls and rocks. Despite these conditions, the grapes have flourished, and viticulture has become an integral part of the landscape and economy. The indissoluble bond between humans and nature is based on the winning combination of adaptation, persistence, experience, and the land. The rest is nebbiolo.
Valtellina Sfursat 5 Stelle had the difficult job of being the flagship wine of not only Nino Negri, but of the entire winemaking region, which turns out volume, quality, and communication efforts like few other places in Europe. The wine, however, has certain attributes that support its position. To begin with, 5 Stelle is made from a well-known grape variety, nebbiolo. Second, Casimiro Maule is the enologist, director, and soul of Nino Negri. Born in Trentino, but from Valtellina by adoption, Maule was able to bring out the best expression of the grapes in terms of quality. Only the top grapes of the top harvests end up in 5 Stelle: Here we are talking about a rigorous selection from vineyards in the “Inferno,” Grumello, and Fracia, all of which are sort of “grand crus” all owned exclusively by Negri. Harvested between the end of September and early October, the grapes are left to dry until mid-December then vinified with a twelve-day maceration. After sixteen months in new Allier and Nervers barriques and a careful blend of the base wines in the bottle, we have before our eyes—or better, under our noses—a deeply granite-colored wine with incredibly fresh aromas, as well as notes of balsamic vinegar and a delicious blending of crusty bread, licorice, chocolate, pepper, and dried fruit. In the mouth, the wine is concentrated and strong with notes of vanilla and soft tannins. The name Sfursat stands for sforzato (forced), referring to the drying of the grapes, a well-calculated, forced maturation of the bunches. In Valtellina, this wine became a typology, and the typology became a DOCG, the top classification in terms of quality according to Italian legislation. A well-deserved title for a wine of great merit.