![\"Arturo](\"https:\/\/www.berlucchi.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/IMG_7222.jpg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cOne of my old and very expert oenology professors at Montpellier used to say that assembling a cuv\u00e9e is like composing a symphony,\u201d recounted Arturo Ziliani, Oenologist and Vice President of Berlucchi.
\nHe continued: \u201cThirty years later, what he taught me is still quite apropos.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ziliani has been Berlucchi\u2019s winemaker since1988, when he worked alongside his father Franco (who created the first Franciacorta, in 1961), and over the last twenty years he has had overall responsibility for production.
\nGuido Berlucchi produces four lines of DOCG Franciacortas, wines with very distinctive, individual sensory signatures: the cuv\u00e9es combining Chardonnay base wines, which are marked by elegance and finesse, and those of Pinot Noir, which represent body and strength, must respect the established identity of the various wines.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe use the term cuv\u00e9e for the \u201cassemblage\u201d of still wines, which are made from different grape varieties, grown in different vineyards, often belonging to different vintages. We the add a mixture of cultured yeasts and cane sugar to that final cuv\u00e9e, which will create the effervescence, that miracle in the bottle, which raises to a greater power the original qualities of the base, and reveals, many months later, a completely new wine, Franciacorta.\u201d<\/p>\n
Continues Ziliani: \u201cOur starting point consists of the 150 base wines at our disposition, which are from the grapes grown in 600 hectares of vineyard in the Franciacorta growing area. Beginning in December, our tasting panel begins the tastings of these base wines, which are kept in steel tanks and oak barrels. They identify their individual characteristics and design the assemblage, which is a very complex job, requiring passion and dedication–just like composing a symphony!\u201d<\/p>\n
Even the \u201creserve wines\u201d–wines held back from previous vintages–can be tesserae in the mosaic, since they can ensure sensory continuity and consistency of a particular Franciacorta wine.
\n\u201cFor Cuv\u00e9e Imperiale Brut, in fact, Berlucchi\u2019s best-known and most widely-available Franciacorta, we assemble together one hundred base wines, with some 10 percent from previous vintages. On the other hand, to create the Palazzo Lana wines, our Riserva Franciacortas, we need only 4, maximum 6, base wines.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ziliani and his colleagues were involved in tastings until mid-March, then in April the tirage, or secondary fermentation bottling, began for the 2012 Franciacortas. And for the current vintage, the first toasts will have to wait for at least two years. \u201cAnd at that moment, we could very well be surprised, since nature makes every growing year literally unique, and thus its wines, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arturo Ziliani, Berlucchi\u2019s oenologist: \u201cIt\u2019s like composing a symphony\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11852,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[457],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n