December 19th, 2011
Merry Christmas and happy 2012 from all of us
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Posted in Events da Lucia.
October 12th, 2011
4th EUROPEAN WINE BLOGGERS’ CONFERENCE in Brescia and Franciacorta – 14/16 October 2011
European Wine Bloggers’ Conference (EWBC) 2011 will take place for the first time in Italy: Franciacorta has been selected by the organizers from many offers of hospitality and will be host to the conference from the 14th to the 16th this month of October. Over 200 bloggers will meet to discuss the relationship between wine enthusiasts and the Internet also looking to opportunities in the future. Read the rest of this entry »
April 5th, 2011
Tirage
As always, the start of the most delicate stage of the new growing year coincides with h that of the “presa di spuma,” the second fermentation in the bottle. This operation brings to an end our work in the cellar with the 2010 vintage, since we now pass the baton first to the yeast cells, since they are the real agents of the bottle fermentation, and then to time, since the winemaker must master the art of waiting, of not hurrying but allowing all of the Franciacortas to reach just that right degree of maturation so that they will amaze us with their array of aromas and fragrances, and those distinctive pin-point bubbles. Read the rest of this entry »
March 4th, 2011
Franciacorta in the world
Fort Mason – San Francisco – Gambero Rosso Three Glasses Tasting – 16 February 2011
I am just back from an interesting trip to the United States for the American leg of Gambero Rosso’s Tre Bicchieri World Tour, which for many years now has been a “must-attend” for Italy’s entire wine sector. So some of Italy’s star wines were present in San Francisco and New York, and in June in Montreal, Canada. One of those stars was, of course, our Franciacorta DOCG Pas Dosé Riserva “Questione di Etichetta” 2004, which captured all of the most prestigious awards in this year’s wine guide editions. Read the rest of this entry »
December 7th, 2010
The season of the Wine Guides
So much commitment, such significant investments, so many difficult choices, decisions that oftentimes seem counter-intuitive, and all of these over the course of years: these are now repaid by excellent wine reviews in the annual wine guides, by awards, and by accolades and congratulations on our wines.
The work that we do is extremely complex and subject to so many variables, and we have to plan and work over a time-span that has to be remarkably long.
Our efforts must be intense if we are to harvest the finest possible fruit, which will reflect fine balance in the grapevine and in its environment.
We strive to achieve a perfect base wine, with the precise characteristics required for it to develop its innate expressiveness over the years, so that we will be rewarded with Franciacortas displaying superb character, each with its own distinctive personality. Read the rest of this entry »
November 19th, 2010
San Martino: let’s go, it’s time to prune
This is the season when we begin to see, down the vine-rows, already denuded of their leaves, the pruners at work.
Local traditions regard November 11, or St. Martin’s day, as the conclusion of the agricultural year. Contracts are renewed now, and payments made for the harvest just brought in. In a way, then, we can say that the 2011 growing year has just begun.
Those who work in the vineyards now don their gloves, pick up their pruning clippers, and through the daylight hours prune the vines, until the end of winter.
It is hard work, very often carried out in sub-zero temperatures, in the fog, the snow, or in that cold winter drizzle that chills your bones.
And yet I remember local farmers in their nineties who from the age of 14 spent all of their winters pruning, with the sole exception, perhaps, of during the Russian Campaign in World War II.
It is no easy task to explain how to prune, but it is a crucial operation, which determines the quality of the grapes that we will pick in late August. Read the rest of this entry »
November 3rd, 2010
EWBC 2010 in Vienna
I too was in Vienna at the EWBC 2010 (European Wine Bloggers Conference) this past October 22-24, and along with me were some 200 wine bloggers from across the globe, from 30 different countries actually.
The venue selected by the super-efficient organisers, Ryan Opaz and Gabriella Opaz of Catavino and Robert McIntosh of Wineconversation, was Schönbrunn Palace: not only was it a magical spot, but it boasted all of the most advanced technologies and had plenty of comfortable, spacious rooms.
It offered a very international atmosphere, and a host of new ideas and jumping-off places for communicating about wine. The two days were very intense and packed with intriguing things; I found it an electrifying experience. Read the rest of this entry »
October 8th, 2010
“B” as in Barrels
During our tastings of the base wines, we always find ourselves faced with such an overwhelming number of samples that, just to speed the process along, we take a felt-tip pen and on each bottle write an abbreviation of the main characteristics of each sample. So, when the first thing to greet us is a capital B, we know that this wine, suitably freed from its bed of dead yeast cells, comes from a barrique, or French oak wine barrel.
Our experience has taught us to prize the contribution that this unique container makes to our wines, and we so deliberately aim to make judicious use of it. Read the rest of this entry »
September 24th, 2010
The QR Code arrives on our labels
Those mysterious pixelated little black and white chequered boxes are by now ubiquitous. They happen to be QR Codes, two-dimensional barcodes that a Smartphone can use to connect to the Internet to access very useful information. That is the reason that we decided to incorporate them in the back labels of our Franciacortas.
We debuted a preview of this project in Genoa during the Vinix Unplugged Unconference of last June 6, and you can access these slides to see how the system works (sorry they are in italian, but the pictures are so clear):
QRCode il Mosnel – Lucia Barzanò
View more presentations from Lucia Barzanò.
