Winemeisters Weekend: Nicoletta Canella of Casa Vinicola Canella

Ever since the wonderful “Vino in Villa” Prosecco tasting I attended in San Francisco last week (see recent posts), I’ve been introducing you to this fine Italian sparkling wine and its producers. www.prosecco.it Today we’ll meet the gracious, *simpatichissima* Nicoletta Canella, whose family (like the Bortolotti/D’Anna family, whom we met last weekend) is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year as pioneers in Prosecco. www.canellaspa.it

At the Vino in Villa tasting, Nicoletta welcomed me to her table, pouring herself a taste of her lovely Prosecco, the “synonym of conviviality,” after filling my glass. (BTW, this is quite rare at “trade” tastings: winery principals hardly ever kick back and sip along with their guests. I felt tremendously flattered!)

We took in the knockout view of the Golden Gate and the splendid city below us, raised a toast to all good things and sipped the delicious Canella Prosecco together as she modestly described her family’s history and wine production.

Nicoletta’s father Luciano established the family winery in 1947, in the Conegliano hills. (Luciano had started very young: as a ten-year-old, when his father died, he helped his mother keep her restaurant in business, and in his teens, began to seek out wine to serve alongside her specialties.) Today he remains at the reins of the company, joined by Nicoletta and her three siblings.

Since the beginning, the Canella family has been instrumental in establishing and elevating the quality and reputation of Prosecco throughout the world. Luciano is renowned as an innovator in wine technology, and even the highly distinctive graphics of the Canella brand have won acclaim. The Canella Prosecco is the first sparkling wine, in fact, to win the “Gran Medaglia d’Oro” (Grand Gold Medal), in 1994, at Vinitaly’s international competition. And at the 1997 Vinitaly, it took the “Best Packaging” award.

A visit to the Canella website reveals a “who’s who” of Italian notables (including Oscar-winning composer Ennio Morricone) enjoying Canella’s Prosecco, and an array of glowing articles about the wine, in Greek, Japanese and Spanish as well as English and Italian.

Nicoletta Canella may travel the globe, but her heart remains in the Italian countryside. While we were talking about Prosecco, she kept returning to descriptions of the hills, the vineyards, and her home. She mentioned a favorite peach orchard, then asked me if I had ever tasted a Bellini. “Yes,” I answered. (I have very fond memories of enjoying a Bellini or two—it’s the quintessential local afternoon sipper—in a canalside café in Venice.)

As it turns out, the peach orchard has more than sentimental value for Nicoletta. She and her family grow a special variety of white peach to blend with their Prosecco, and they bottle it in a single-serving size. (The label reads: BELLINI—Il Cocktail di Venezia.) It’s immensely popular; Canella even hosted a “Bellini Bar” in Piazza San Marco during Carnevale this year.

Canella also produces a Bellini peach eau-de-vie, a strawberry-flavored “Rossini” sparkler (continuing the motif of Italian bel canto composers), and a rosé sparkler in addition to their top-flight Prosecco.

Mille grazie, Nicoletta Canella—I enjoyed our conversation tremendously, and I continue to enjoy your lovely wine. Splendido!

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

Wine 101 Wednesday: Prosecco and the “Metodo Italiano”

We’ve been bouncing back and forth between Pinot and Prosecco for the last few days, thanks to a couple of quite wonderful tastings I attended in San Francisco last week. When we left off yesterday, I promised you more about the specialized methods of Prosecco production in the Veneto region of northeastern Italy.

First, I’d like to say thanks for all *your* inquiries about Prosecco, and since this is our first “First Wednesday,” when I answer *your* questions, I’ll field them here, as part of my wrapup. (Thanks, Jim in OR; Ben in SoCal; M.A. in NY! And “mille grazie” to the many members of the Consorzio Tutela Prosecco Conegliano Valdobbiadene, the Prosecco governing body, who personally provided me with detailed descriptions at the Vino in Villa tasting. Their excellent website,
www.prosecco.it filled in lots of extra details, as well as the quotes.)

Back to the Prosecco how-to. At harvest time, the members of the Consorzio carefully monitor grape maturity in the vineyards throughout the zone. When the time is right, the Consorzio holds a public meeting to give the many growers the go-ahead to start picking.

The grapes then move to the various wineries, where special crushers gently press them to extract only the “free-run juice from the heart of the berry.” (The remainder eventually gets distilled into Prosecco grappa.) Generally, a winery keeps different “lots” of grapes from different vineyards or areas separate, to preserve the unique character of each one.

This free-run juice rests for 12-14 hours in stainless-steel tanks to let the sediment settle out, and then is allowed to ferment, becoming Prosecco “base wine.” The winemaker tastes the various lots, then blends them “in precise proportions, so as to achieve a perfect balance of all the components.”

Now comes the “Metodo Italiano”: Italy’s version of the Charmat process, in which a sparkling wine’s secondary fermentation takes place in large, pressure-sealed vats. Also used in the Piemonte region to make the famed Asti Spumante, this method works better for Prosecco than the more time-consuming (and more expensive) Methode Champenoise, in which a wine ferments in individual bottles with lengthy yeast contact.

Why? Because Prosecco, and the Muscat-based Asti Spumante, are fruit-driven. Their charm is all about freshness and bright flavors, and the yeast-based characteristics of Champenoise sparklers just aren’t necessary. (Some producers, in fact, actually argue that these flavors would detract from their Prosecco.)

What’s more, since the Metodo Italiano is faster and less costly, the Prosecco can come to market sooner, with a price tag that suits it to celebrating every single day. And that’s a win-win in my book!

BTW: I also promised you more info about the term “DOC” (Denominazione di Origine Controllata). This refers to a set of quality-assurance rules for Italian wine production, in force throughout the country. Established by presidential decree in 1963, DOC is comparable to the French AOC, which was instituted in the 1950s for the same purpose.

The DOC concept is so important that I’ll bring it back soon for a Wine 101 Wednesday of its own. Meanwhile, we’ll taste some Pinots tomorrow. Until then,

Cheers,
Rosina

PS—Apologies for this late posting. As you can see, it’s now Thursday the 5th. I took a looong walk on the beach yesterday morning, and between that and the 100-degree afternoon, I was so wiped in the evening that I actually fell asleep at my laptop…
gilded fork, wine, wine writing, Welcome to Wine Country, Rosina Tinari Wilson

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