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I’m here! I’m alive! I’m exhausted! I’m too excited to care that I’ve only had two hours of lousy sleep! Dazed and jet lagged, the thirt
y of us pulled our half-dead bodies into the bus,
which was warm and very stuffy. Most of us have been traveling for somewhere betw
een 12-24 hours by now. By my standa
rds, that fact deserves an “Ufdah!”
The long ride shot us thro
ugh the country. We found our way into a small town down roads nearly too small for our buss to fit on them. We found our first stop: Vingne Rigali. We pulled around to the winery, parked next to a white house fit for a princess with palm trees in the yard and rose coated stone walls. . . . . The buildings here are so beautiful. Roses everywhere, poppies freckle the lush green with orange. Everything seems a little too storybook to be real. The houses are either shabby and quaint or ancient and magnificent. Alleys are splashed with
pastel pinks, greens, and yellows. Everyone has shutters, everyone hangs their laundry to dry, and everyone has plants covering at least a third of every surface. Leaves and petals seem to grown right out of the walls. Trees here look like bouquets stuck in the ground so upright and all in perfectly straight rows. I never want to
leave!
At the winery we meet the director, Alberto Lazzario. Shock and awe permeated the group as he showed us his cellar filled with hundreds and hundreds of bott
les containing wine in the midst of second fermentation. In-bottle second fermentation is the process by which the sparkle is put into the highest quality sparkling wines. Historically called,
Methode Champenoise or Method Classico, this is the same process used in Champagne, France.
Check out the clip below and listen
to Alberto explain how sparkling wine is made.
(Coming soon)
As we moved into the second room, Alberto showed us the machines that turn this fermented treasure into a finished sparkling wine. Machine number on
e: bottles are placed neck down and the tip is frozen. This ice cube of yeast is removed and di
scarded. This process of removing the yeast is called disgorgement. At the next machine, sues reserve, reserved wine, is added to the
bottle to fill in the empty space and in some cases sweeten the sparkling wine.
After learning the complete process of making these wines, the only logical next thing to do now was to taste them. Alberto handed us a glass of sparkling Gavi called Principessa Perlante . . . then a still wine Principessa Gavia . . .. Then we tried what became my fa
vorite of the day Rosa Regale.
This red Sparkling- made from an aromatic grape. Aromatic grapes, unlike other grapes, show the same strong characteristics in both the aroma and flavor. Moscato is an aromatic
grape. It is a dessert red and as much as it smells like a bouquet of roses and a bowl of macerated strawberries it tastes like the lush petals sweet berries straight from the garden. The sweetness in this wine is not overwhelming and cut by strong acidity and zippy bubbles. I recommend this wine to everyone that likes . . . . um well to taste! Everyone in the group loved this wine. AND Good news: it’s available in the states. Although it is a red wine, the taste and aroma make it as approachable as a white
or blush to those who stay clear of reds.
After the tasting, we followed our leader into a tall white room filled with shining silver tanks. We
stood surrounded by fermenting juice. Each tank here holds enough juice for hundreds of thousands of bottles of wine. Just before stepping into the holding area, Alberto lets us sneak a sniff of the fermenting wine. I was astounded! As he turned the knob, a
hiss of potent aromas escaped from what will become Rosa Rigale I bent down to the spigot to breathe in the loveliness. To my surprise, it smelled sweet, and not very yeasty at all. In fact, it reminded me of banana laffy taffy! What artistry is must take t
o guide this extravagant and wild juice into the lovely creature I had just en
countered in my glass. As we passed from room to room my amazement only grew. We taste pure muscato grape juice as well as among other juices at the beginning of fermentation. These grape juices were no juicy juice. They didn’t even taste like grapes!
As our tour wound down we walked through the bottling area, saw mushroom corks and how they are inserted, we saw the pasteurizer, walked between stacked pallets of wine, and
ended up in the barrel room. Dark and dramatic this room hits to the myste
riously wonderful liquid that hides behind the wooden veils. This next part was a truly Filled with Alborosa and dolcetta. Alborosa is a cross- not a hybrid of nebiolo an
d barbera. Only four wineries in the world make it, and we taste it from the barrel.
Wow! First wine it Italy, first winery, first glimpse into this world that is not longer just a boot on the map, I
just can’t believe it!
After the wine tour we ate what was called a “light lunch” a disguise fo
r a large lunch of so-called lighter fare.
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