Tuesday Travels: Passport to Wine (PtA) #1—Veneto Region, Italy

Benvenuti in Italia! (Welcome to Italy!) And welcome to our very first “Welcome to Wine Country” Passport to Wine. As their name implies, these virtual visits whisk us across borders and oceans to wine-growing areas in other parts of the globe.

Today we’re visiting the Wine Country of the Veneto region, right outside Venice in the northeast between the Dolomites and the Adriatic Sea. Hilly and somewhat chilly, the Veneto is the home of Prosecco, www.prosecco.it Italy’s delightfully fruity-fresh sparkling wine.

The vintners who produce this bubbly treasure have very wisely banded together to form a consortium to establish quality-control guidelines for Prosecco. The wine, in fact, has earned DOC status (more tomorrow) for its terroir-focused standards of excellence.

Although I love to travel, this time I didn’t have to deal with jet lag, airport hassles or an actual passport to taste Prosecco: Italy came to San Francisco last week with a wonderful “Vino in Villa” tasting, featuring members of the consortium and their wines. (Here's a pic of Daniele D'Anna in the Crown Room of the Fairmont Hotel with his Bortolotti Prosecco. www.bortolotti.com)

As they poured me their lovely libations, the visiting vintners described the unique growing conditions of their region. Stretching across a series of hill chains in the province of Treviso, between the town of Conegliano in the east and Valdobbiadene at the western edge, the Prosecco production zone comprises about 45,000 acres in 15 separate communities. Farming the steep hills is labor-intensive and difficult to mechanize, and much of the acreage is in the hands of small growers, with several co-ops and only a few large producers.

Much of Prosecco’s character comes directly from the vineyards. The grape does best (BTW, “Prosecco” is the name of the grape varietal as well as the sparkling wine made from it) on hillsides, at altitudes of up to ~1650 feet. This makes for dramatic cooling at night, which helps preserve and build the necessary acidity in the grapes. On the other side of the coin, Prosecco vineyards are planted on south-facing slopes (often with woods on the northern side) to achieve optimal ripeness.

Several other local varietals—Bianchetta, Verdiso and the “pear-shaped” Perera—are sometimes blended with Prosecco, usually in small amounts. Distinctive and especially beautiful at harvest time, the large, yellow Prosecco grape clusters make for an eye-catching golden accent on the sunny hillsides.

Grapegrowing in this region dates back to ancient times: Prosecco may possibly trace its ancestry to the “Pucino” of the Roman era. In its modern form, Prosecco production began about 200 years ago. Nowadays, thanks to successful programs of clonal selection, vintners plant different “biotypes” of Prosecco in the various microclimates of the zone. A top-flight research facility, in fact—the Experimental Center for Viticulture, along with the excellent School of Viticulture and Enology, both in Conegliano—provide research and education within the Prosecco community.

Tomorrow, on Wine 101 Wednesday, we’ll look at the how-to of Prosecco production. Until then,

Cheers (Salute)—
Rosina
gilded fork, wine, wine writing, Welcome to Wine Country, Rosina Tinari Wilson

Winemeisters Weekend: Daniele D’Anna of Cantine Umberto Bortolotti

Yesterday I brought you to an amazing tasting of Prosecco, the food-friendly sparkling wine of the Veneto in northeastern Italy. The event featured members of the Consorzio Tutela del Vino Prosecco DOC di Conegliano e Valdobbiadene. Since the 1960s, this consortium of producers has established, and now maintains and enhances, the high standards of quality for their wine. www.prosecco.it

I had the great pleasure of meeting quite a few vintners, to taste at least two or three different Prosecco bottlings at each table, and to trot out my rusty Italian. In the back of the room, framed against a backdrop of San Francisco Bay and the distant Carneros wine-growing district that spans the southern edge of both Napa and Sonoma, stood the tall, charismatic Daniele D’Anna. Earlier, during my first tasting at the Adami winery table, www.adamispumanti.it the well-connected Enrico Valleferro had singled out “mi amico Daniele” and his wines as an absolute “must.”

Daniele is the grandson (on his mother’s side, hence the different surnames), of Umberto Bortolotti, who founded his eponymous winery www.bortolotti.com in Valdobbiadene in 1947. Daniele is as warm, charming, smart and fun as he is movie-star handsome. (See pic, and yesterday’s too.) And the guy makes some fine, fine vino to boot.

When I arrived at his table, Daniele was pouring his Brut—the first of several Prosecco bottlings from the winery’s “UB” line—for a small group of tasters. I quickly joined in. I loved the wine’s crisp tang and clean dry finish, with nice full fruit. We kicked around some recipe ideas, most of which involved some sort of seafood. (I immediately pictured a mound of oysters, a shucking knife, a lemon and a slew of napkins.)

His second wine, the Extra Dry, has a bit more sweetness in the dosage (pronounced doh-SAAZH, this is a French term for the sugar added to sparkling wine just before bottling; Brut generally has less than Extra Dry). This gives it a softer, rounder overall impression, and suits it to foods with sweetness, salt and/or spice. Our conversation twisted and turned from prosciutto with melon to Thai food and sushi (see yesterday’s post), with lots of tasty stops along the way.

Last, and anything but least, Daniele poured us a taste of the ultra-luxe Cartizze (named for a tiny town in the nearby hills, with an even cooler microclimate than the rest of the region). Cartizze has earned the VSQPRD (Vini Spumanti di Qualita’ Prodotti in Regioni Determinate) designation. Refined, subtle, elegant: bring on the salmon and caviar. (And instead of springing for the sturgeon stuff, I’ll pick up some tobiko (flying-fish roe) at the Asian market for this beauty.

Mille grazie, Daniele D’Anna, for the delicious pours, the lively conversation, and all your great ideas on pairing Prosecco with a world of food. Thanks also for the great “to go” boxful of bubbles—my friends, family and I will be enjoying your wines, and toasting you and your Consorzio colleagues, for quite a while. (And happy 60th anniversary to the Bortolotti winery!)

Ciao for now, e salute—
Cheers,
Rosina
gilded fork, wine, wine writing, Welcome to Wine Country, Rosina Tinari Wilson