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Going Organic in Cartizze

In a period in which Prosecco sales are soaring and their volume surpasses the one of Champagne, the world turn their eyes to Valdobbiadene. The heart of Prosecco production.

Crowning the pyramid of the Prosecco hierarchy we find Cartizze.

Cartizze, the Prosecco Grand Cru?

Cartizze is a hilly area of about 107 hectares, just outside Valdobbiadene. The microclimate in this valley creates a special condition that helps creating this particular style of Prosecco.

The hills face south, keeping the vines exposed to the sun for the whole day without having one vine casting shadow over another. This leads to better maturation and higher sugar levels than in any other Prosecco production area.

The valley also creates a sort of air tunnel, keeping the vines ventilated. This constant air flow facilitates adoption of sustainable practices, since the climate helps keeping fungal diseases away.

The soil is also a key feature in this production area. The mix of sand and layers of clay facilitate drainage, while keeping the right amount of moist on the roots. The grapes don’t “suffer” as much as in other neighboring areas, which is often desired, but evolve to healthy fruits.

The combination of these aspects gives the Prosecco from Cartizze differentiated levels of complexity, depth and elegance.

The Winemaker

On a recent trip to the region I connected with Pietro De Conti, from Pdc (similarity between the acronym for his name and the vineyard label is not a coincidence).

After travelling the world and spending a fair time in Australia, Pietro came back to his origins in the family business. His vision is to evolve the expression of glera (key grape in the production of Prosecco), specialize in Cartizze only and narrow the gap between the producer and the final consumer.

A firm believer in the concept of the terroir in the region (a good place to be if we are talking about Cartizze) Pdc has 100% glera in their Prosecco. Technically, the DOCG demands a minimum of 85% of glera in Prosecco. The remaining 15% is generally a blend with Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay and Pinot Bianco, among others.

The harvest here begins ahead of time compared to most grapes. For sparkling wine production, the required levels of acidity are pretty high, which leads to picking the grapes at early ripening stages. All the grapes are hand-picked and the 10 people team completes the harvest in just a bit over 4 hours. The work starts really early in the morning in order to prevent the fermentation from kicking off ahead of time under the sun. The short distances to be covered allow the grapes to leave the vines and reach the pressing in less than an hour.

By the figures above you can imagine already that the production is not that large. They top 10 thousand bottles a year only, between their Brut and the Dry styles.

 

Challenges of going Organic in Cartizze

While Valdobbiadene has gained media spotlights with their soaring production, there is a shadow lingering over this success. It’s been years since several parties have been calling attention to the heavy use of synthetic pesticides in the region. 

It’s a tough change to make when the soil has got already addicted to the long-term use of such chemicals.

Europe has been looking for a role model to follow on how to transition to more sustainable practices, and it seems they are slowly rising.

Bordeaux saw several cases of soil deterioration and intoxication of workers in the vineyards. After a lot of pressure from entities and good will from associations, actions came into play. At the core of the right bank, Saint-Émilion passed a measurement mandating sustainable farming in the region, starting with the 2019 vintage. That will impact nearly 1000 wine growers alone.
While a mandate doesn’t come in other regions, organic practices depend on patience and risk tolerance of a few producers.Pdc is part of this selected few. Pietro believes in the natural health of the soil for the plants to shine. Starting with the 2019 vintage, Pdc will have the organic certification stamped on their wine labels.

That is an epic achievement, considering the efforts to remain organic in the region. Cooperation with neighboring producers is needed so that your own vines are not contaminated by their spraying. Another producer in Valdobbiadene explained to me that despite adopting organic practices, up to 20% of his production cannot be eligible to be bottled as organic. The vines on his property that are too close to his neighbors, that are non-organic producers, often get contaminated. Often happens that the concentration of chemicals on these vines go over the maximum levels allowed to comply as organic.

Pdc wines

Pietro brought home ideas on customer care learned abroad. You clearly notice a differentiated approach at the modern tasting room, personalized tasting materials, communication with final consumers and the full use of digital content in their premises.

PdC is also trying to provide orientation to visitors in the region. Extending the experience from the vineyard to restaurant recommendations, cultural activities and a bit of history from the area.

Their 100% glera sparkling wines come in two styles: Cartizze Brut and Dry.

Both with beautiful and persistent perlage, the range of aromas is wide enough to be entertaining but straight enough to keep it fun and not too serious. Summery opening with acacia flowers, white peaches, pear, grapefruit and some minor herbal notes with sage and thyme. Long finish with lemon zest, bitter almonds and a bit of wet slate adding minerality to the palate.

Something close to my heart is the view of having the wine as an experience. The more ingrained the story gets into the wine, more meaning you see on each sip.

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Taking care of your wine storage

Wine storage

Your wine collection is getting bigger and wine storage is becoming an increasing concern.

Your fridge is full of sparkling wine, your charming little wine fridge it out of empty slots, the boxes start to pile up in the kitchen. It’s time to start looking for the next place in your house with the right conditions to accomodate the collection you so much care about.

We have previously discussed on why and when wine can benefit from bottle aging process. This time we are going to tap on how to find the most suitable place available in your house for that process to develop smoothly.

An anecdote on storing wine

Before bullet-pointing some guidelines on how to care for your wine storage, there is a short story on how to approach the process. It’s a simple yet quirky way to visualize what are you aiming for when setting up your cellar.

Imagine wine as a living being. It will age while having a proper sleep (or you can call it hibernation if you are talking about a Barolo or Saint-Estèphe, for example). What would be then the ideal conditions for a long and relaxing rest? Let’s start with lying down on a horizontal position. Light can be quite disruptive so we are also looking for a dark place. Temperature should be adequate; too warm or too cold can be bothering and we are looking for a nicely chilled environment. Also, imagine we’ll have only one blanket so if the temperature fluctuates a lot, it can be annoying to adapt to the changes. No strong smells and also no vibration, so that the dreams are not disrupted. Humidity in the air should also be at the right levels in order to keep the freshness of the environment under control.

This anecdote states the baseline of the conditions we are looking for when choosing a cradle for your aging worth bottles.

Checking the list

Bringing that story to an operational level: why and how to ensure that list of requirements is met?

1. Horizontal position

This is mainly to keep the wine in touch with the cork so that it remains wet. This will cause the cork to swollen and ensure the seal is kept tight, preventing the air to reach the wine inside the bottle.

2. Dark place

The bottle design itself already helps slowing down the aging. The frequent dark brown or green colour of the glass helps filtering the light, but it can’t do the whole job on its own. Light can damage the wine as UV interferes on the chemical reactions of the aging process. Also, choosing incandescent light bulbs over fluorescent ones is a better way to set up light for your wine storage, if needed. The latter should be avoided as it has a larger blue light spectrum, pouring more UV over the bottles.

3. Keeping it cool

We are looking here for the zone between 12C and 15C. If too cold, the wine won’t develop overtime and if too hot, that process will be too fast and can eventually damage the structure of the wine. It might result in some wines developing “cooked” flavours.

4. Avoiding Temperature swings

This is a bit hard to assess as it depends on how much the temperature changes and how fast the swing is. What we are trying to avoid is a sort of a “pumping” effect that can happen to the cork when the content of the bottle (wine + air) expands and shrinks with the temperature changes. This will cause the air to come inside the bottle and affect the aging.

5. Smells

Smells can attach to the cork and eventually the wine if the environment is saturated with strong odours for long periods of time. As a short term concern, the smell can also stick to the bottle and label which can be bothering as you bring the bottle to the table for service. Remember those hanging garlic bulbs on a cord or the cured salami hanging in the cellar? Yeap, not a good idea to have them close to your wine collection.

6. Vibration

There is a bit of debate on this one and some opinions might diverge. The idea is that vibration can impact the chemical reactions involved in the aging process and might speed them up. That acceleration can affect how the wine develops, as well as its structure. There is also the thought that vibration can disturb the sediments overtime not allowing them to sink, which makes them blend with the wine and turn it gritty. Having said that, be mindful if you have any equipment near your bottles that might produce vibration, such as a laundry machine or large engines. However, unless you leave under a train station or a football stadium, vibration might not be a concern to your collection.

7. Humidity

That’s a way to control the condition of the cork from the outside. The idea is to stay between 50% and 80% of relative humidity. If too dry it can impact the lifetime of the cork. If too humid, you can have mould developing on it (which is not a bad sign but could be avoided). Don’t forget that the conditions we are listing here are also a paradise for fungus (have you ever came across pictures of bottles in century old cellars in France…?).

My thoughts on wine storage

Looking at the conditions above, it’s more likely you will find most of them already in the basement of your house and you’ll need to adjust for the ones that need a little tweak.

If a basement is not available, any other vacant room or a closet could be a nice option for your growing collection. In that case, you can start with a piece of furniture (made of wood if possible) as a wardrobe or a door closing cabinet.

If you are willing to invest a bit more, you can also find specialized equipment that controls temperature and humidity of your cellar (if it’s a confined area).

The hardest factor to control for when talking about home-based cellars is the temperature swings, normally due to the change of seasons.

Leaving your more precious bottles or the ones that require longer aging closer to the floor of your cellar is a way to minimize that effect. The temperature fluctuations tend to be smaller there, especially if it’s a cement or stony floor.

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Have you ever heard about Tazzelenghe?

Tazzelenghe

It’s been a few months since we started, together my father-in-law, a careful hunt for a nearly extinct wine from Friuli.

Tazzelenghe is an indigenous grape from the extreme northeast of Italy, and has made Friuli Venezia-Giulia its home.

Along with several other European varieties, Tazzelenghe was nearly extinct in the 1860s with the arrival of the phylloxera. The remaining vines got hit again years later by powdery and downy mildew. Then, if that was not enough, its cultivation became forbidden in the region because of commercial pressure and market demands. It was replaced back then for known and more commercially appealing varieties (such as Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon). Tazzelenghe didn’t have a particularly easy road, while trying to thrive in the region.

Over a century later, in the more recent 1980s, it regained some traction and was back in a few less known vineyards. Its introduction in the list of grapes allowed in the Colli Orientali del Friuli (DOC) and the patience of a few producers, has been supporting the slow return of this grape. Still, there were only about 80 hectares being cultivated in Italy in 2000, according to agricultural census.

Tazzelenghe (coming from “taglia lingua”) literally means “tongue cutting”. It got this fame because of its super high tannin and acidity profile. Proper love in the hands of a good wine maker can help unfold great aging potential, giving the wine a good development prospects in the bottle.

Thick black skinned grape, Tazzelenghe has a late ripening. Given the naturally high acidity, grape growers leave the harvest for the very end of the season. This not only makes the most of the phenolic maturation but also increases the chances of getting the acids at the lower end of the curve.

Tazzlengue is cultivated today in the province of Udine, mainly in the communes of Buttrio, Manzano e Cividale.

It can be used to create single variety wines, but it is often blended with minor parts of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon to facilitate achieving balance.

We found by chance in a restaurant, their last three bottles in the stock. Those were properly aged, ready to drink and we gladly took all of them home for our tasting session.

Tasting Notes

The wine we picked for this tasting was a Tazzelenghe from La Viarte. Vintage 2003 with 100% Tazzelenghe. It was a great finding as we were hoping to check the grape in purity, to understand its expression. Most often Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon are blended in minor parts, as mentioned.

Grapes were macerated for 15 days, with fermentation between 25 and 28ºC. 12 months in new French oak barriques, resting for 30 months in the bottles before reaching the market.

The thing with opening anything older than 10 years (mental milestone for me) is that it’s really hard not to find yourself recalling how was your life back then… when the harvest that created that bottle in front of you was being done.

Feels like a ritual to me to go through that mental process, while gently taking the capsule out, working the screw through the cork and slowly pulling it out.

Look

Deep dark red, shifting to granate with some brick-coloring showing in the rim, giving away a bit of the development over the years. Even working on the decanting, there were minor fine sedimentation.

Nose

We let the wine decant for one hour, but it actually took nearly three hours for it to start waking up. The story it told was really exciting. It began with big and ripe Amarena bitter cherries, over ripe plums, some scattered red currant and a bit of papaya. Dark chocolate, licorice and baking spices following after.

Palate

It’s in the palate that the Tazzelenghe shows the traits that give its name. After 16 years in the bottle it sustained a bright freshness. Great attack with a clean finish. Tannins were big, round and mature. The wine aged well, the wood was well integrated in the work and the structured developed beautifully through the years. Bitter cherries, ripe plums and red currant confirmed in the palate. Balsamic notes showed up. The finishing was a reminder that it was grown in the Friuli, with a characteristic mineral signature and faint bitterness. Mouth watering minerality with wet slate and a bit of chalk.

The balsamic notes added to the long mineral finish, bring up the salivation. It kept me coming back to the board of pecorino romano cheese, taleggio and salami in front of us. A really wonderful pairing, with fat of the bites and acidity of the wine balancing each other.

Clean and elegant finish, with great persistence. Red currant and wet slate following until the end.

Tazzelenghe from La Viarte delivered in the legend of this indigenous grape.

A couple of other producers worth noting would include Conte d’Attimis Maniago  and Le Due Torri.

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Essentials on how to decant red wine

How to decant red wine

You have guests coming to your home later for dinner. The occasion to open that ten-year-old Pauillac you have been cellaring for a while has arrived. Together with the proper choice of glass and the right temperature of service, giving wine some breathing time can help it get to its best expression.

The wine might need a little wake up, after all that time in the bottle and a bit of a gentle filtering. Sediments might have deposited, which you might want to leave out of the glass not to impact the texture of the wine and the overall experience.

We have talked a bit on the essentials of why and when we need decanting and how it impacts the wine. The hands-on part comes now, as we look into how to decant red wine.

To kick off this talk, there is a question that often comes up when it comes to wine aeration…

What is the difference between Carafing and Decanting?

We won’t go into the nitty-gritty of this discussion in this post, but you might have heard both terms before apparently referring to the same thing. Well, technically, those are different procedures and with different purposes.

Carafing aims at aerating the wine, by exposing it to oxygen in a controlled fashion. While decanting also brings some aeration into the process, it aims at separating the sediments that might appear in wine overtime, especially in aged and more tannic ones.

In reality, however, the term decanting ends up being frequently used referring to general wine aeration procedures, having it a separation of sediments involved or not.

Shapes and sizes

Carafes and decanters might differ from each other in their shape, given their different purposes. As a guideline, carafes tend to be especially larger at the base, enhancing the area of contact of the wine with the air, rending more efficient the aeration process. Decanters on the other hand tend to have a narrower body and neck, with a relatively reduced area of contact between the wine and the air. The first two recipients bellow could be referred to as carafes, while the ones in the second row follow what we have as the description of a decanter.

Difference between Decanter and Carafe
Difference between Decanter and Carafe

Today we find carafes and decanters in all sorts of shapes and sizes. They can get really artsy at times, boarder lining common sense. Some of these pieces make you wonder if they are as functional as a decanter as they are as a conversation starter in a dinning table.

Jokes a part, some modern designs do create a good effect while serving at the table while making the most effective approach to fluid dynamics.

We’ll focus on the classic decanting definition and its procedure, since it’s a more complete approach (incorporates the carafing steps in itself). We are also having red wines in mind, as they are generally more in need of air after bottle time, than whites.

The decanting process

A call out about storing conditions of the wine, right before you open it: If you have taken it from an horizontal position in your cellar, it’s a good idea to let it rest vertically for a day or two. This would give time for the sediments to sit at the bottom and facilitate the decanting procedure. If there is no time for that, any couple of hours would be already helpful. Last case scenario, if there is way too much sediment, you can use a special sieve on top of the decanter.

Using a good corkscrew, remove the cork without agitating the bottle too much, not to disturb eventual sediments. Pour a little dose and give it a try. Make a mental note on the intensity and complexity of the aromas you first get. If you feel they are quite silent and the wine is not speaking too much yet, let’s start the decanting process and see how it evolves.

With a dry and clean decanter at hand, gently pour the wine in a slow, steady and uninterrupted movement (again, avoiding  sediments to go back and ravel inside the bottle). Let it flow through the walls of the decanter. Towards the end, as soon as you notice that the sediments are about to pass through the neck of the bottle and into the decanter, you stop. You can use the help of a light source (generally a candle) behind the neck of the bottle to help seeing when sediments are about to pass.

For how long should you decant?

The right time to decant wine depends on a few factors which include style, region, age, storing conditions and of course, your own preference.As you see, there is a good component of subjectivity on when enough is enough.You can follow your own taste by tasting the wine from the decanter  every 20 minutes to evaluate its point. It’s a good exercise to see how the wine evolves and also to understand a bit more of your own taste.If you’d like a suggestion for a starting point, below are some rough guidelines:

To decant immediately before serving:

  • Bordeaux, Burgundy and Côtes du Rhône over 20 years old

To decant 1-2 hours before serving:

  • Bordeaux, Burgundy and Côtes du Rhône 5 to 20 years old
  • Zinfandel
  • Malbec (New World)
  • Pinot Noir (New World)
  • Cabernet and Shiraz (New World)

To decant up to four hours before serving:

  • Bordeaux, Burgundy and Cote du Rhône less than 5 years old
  • Modern Rioja, Ribera del Duero and Priorat
  • Dão, Douro and Alentejo
  • Barolo, Barbaresco and Brunello

My thoughts on decanting
If you have an event starting or a group coming for a tasting, the decanting should be planned ahead of time.

However, whenever there is an opportunity, I truly appreciate letting the wine aerate slowly in the glass, or letting it sit in the opened bottle (recorked) for a couple of days.

If the wine is too old, light in body or fragile because of a not so good vintage, the structure might not have held well over time. In this case,  decanting should be handled with care of even completely skipped as it might damage the wine. For example, for a 30 years old Burgundy, I would just pour into the glass and let it all happen there… inside the glass. Seeing the aromas and even the color change in the minutes that follow.That’s why I think the so called “super aeration” (e.g. putting your wine into a blender to, hypothetically, do a stronger& faster aeration) is an overkill and is aligns better with cocktail mixing than wine service.

Unless you are trying to fix something off in the wine, decanting should be gentle with the wine you are serving.

Service is an important part of wine appreciation and does impact your perception of the experience. It’s a delicate balance, as you try to highlight the nature of the wine and work of the producer, without getting in the way of the results.