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The classic method sparkling wines
The cuvées represent the “Berlucchi style,” the result of a skilful blend of wines harvested in Italy’s best sparkling-wine areas: Franciacorta, Oltrepò Pavese, and Trentino-Alto Adige.
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Where quality grows
All winemaking professionals have for a long time agreed on one principle: the quality of the wine comes principally from the vineyard, which gives the fruit the distinctiveness of the particular terroir and microclimate where the grapes are grown. |
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The “Berlucchi style”
Berlucchi played a fundamental role in first intuiting, then developing the superb aptitude of Franciacorta for sparkling wines, As far back as 1961, we produced the first 3,000 bottles of classic-method sparkling wine, assembling a cuvée we called “Pinot di Franciacorta.” |
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Home
> History and founders |
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Guido Berlucchi was a gentleman farmer in Borgonato, in the province of Brescia, who produced during the 1950s a still white wine.
He called it "Pinot del Castello," since the vineyards were planted on the slopes of the low hill on which stood the castle of Borgonato, which he owned. But the wine had a stability problem, since it tended to throw a haze after bottling, and he needed a professional winemaker to clear up the problem and thus improve the wine.
Thus the 1954 meeting with Franco Ziliani, a young man of the area full of enthusiasm and dreams, and a recent graduate of the Institute of Enology in Alba. Ziliani fixed the problem, then went on to talk with Guido Berlucchi about his dream, producing, in Franciacorta, a sparkling wine that would hold its own against Champagne.
In the late 1950s, with the additional help of Giorgio Lanciani, Guido Berlucchi's friend and colleague, and in spite of a host of start-up difficulties due to a lack of equipment, materials, and experience,
the foundations where laid for an operation that would bring into reality Franco Ziliani's dreams.
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In 1961 the first 3,000 bottles of sparkling wine were produced, using the classic method; these finally exhibited the qualities for which Ziliani was striving. The chosen few who were able to taste it were struck by the quality and elegance of that wine.
Ziliani christened it 'Pinot di Franciacorta," with remarkable farsightedness, for this was the first time that Franciacorta, the geographical name of the area, appeared on a wine label.
The bottles soon reached the 20,000 mark, then 100,000, then many hundreds of thousands. The rest is recent history, inasmuch as Italian wine lovers have shown an ever greater appreciation for the qualities of Berlucchi sparkling wines, which have become the symbol of excellence of Italian spumanti and the benchmark for all classic-method sparkling wine producers in Italy.
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Franco Ziliani wanted to create a sparkling wine with qualities that would appeal to everyone, would be produced in quantities to make it easily available, at a price that would be widely affordable and yet provide revenues to invest in continuously improving the winery and its products.
He had no desire to produce a niche or cult product, at a stratospheric price for just a privileged few. His philosophy was to offer the Italians a wine that they would acquire for its excellent quality, at a good quality-price ratio, a wine that would encourage the pleasures of dining and celebrating with a sparkler grown and produced on Italian soil.
The success of his wines has made them classic-method sector leaders in Italy, for consumers' purchases have provided ample confirmation that his goals were correct. That same philosophy still guides the activities of Berlucchi.
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