Marco Sabellico has tasted more Italian wine than pretty much anyone, and he believes there are exciting times ahead.
Given the complex and ever-changing nature of the Italian wine industry, it's safe to say that there are few authorities on the subject; Marco Sabellico however, is most assuredly one of them.
For the past 30 years, he has tasted thousands of wines for Gambero Rosso – often referred to as the Italian Wine Bible – and, since 2010, he has been the senior editor of the publication's Vini d'Italia. This annual guide represents tastings of tens of thousands of Italian wines each year, with approximately 1 percent rated as Tre Bicchieri (Three Glasses), signifying their status as the tasting panel's best of the year. Suffice it to say that few individuals have tasted as many Italian wines over the past three decades as Sabellico.
Clearly, he has witnessed significant changes in his country’s wines over this time frame; we recently interviewed him to learn his thoughts on how Italian wine producers have shifted their thinking regarding several topics, from work in the vineyards necessitated by climate change to a shift in how wines are fermented and matured in the cellar. This latter subject is one that Sabellico is quite outspoken about.
Concrete plans
One change Sabellico has noticed recently is the choice of vessels used for fermentation. "Concrete is coming back," he remarks. "It was forgotten for quite a long time." Decades before stainless steel was introduced for fermentation in the 1970s, most winemakers used concrete; some would also mature their wines in concrete as well. Regarding aging, Sabellico notes: "The producers keep it there for quite a long time. Sometimes they ferment in concrete vats, either refurbished ones that they didn't destroy, or the new concept, the small, modern fermenting vats."
But it is the shift away from barriques to medium and large-sized casks that Sabellico detects as a major change over the past few years in the country's cellars. "The most modern producers in Italy are using less barrique," he comments. "Most of the wines we awarded are not aged in 100 percent new oak."
He notes that most wines aged exclusively in new barriques are made from international varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Chardonnay, which represent a very small percent of Italian wines in an industry where indigenous varieties, such as Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, Verdic and Fiano represent the paradigm.
Over the past several years, Sabellico has noticed that more producers have converted to medium-sized (tonneaux) or large-sized (grandi botti) oak casks. "They are moving to bigger casks, such as 40 or 50 hectoliters [4000 to 5000 liters, as compared with 225 liters for a barrique]. Tonneaux – 500 or 600 liters – is also doing well."
He has also witnessed a movement where some producers are now using barrels made from wood other than oak.
Looking beyond oak
"We have some experiments with different essences like cherry wood, acacia, and even chestnut," he says. "The traditional oak, the essence of oak used in Italy before the new renaissance of Italian wine was chestnut. Then it was said that it was no good, so everybody destroyed them. Some are now trying with the new kind of toasting, with smaller capacity; there are some signals I have that chestnut alongside acacia and cherry wood are in use in wineries." He says that cherry and acacia casks are popular in the Valpolicella area for producing Amarone.
Sabellico has noticed that anforae, containers used thousands of years ago for storing wine, have also made a comeback. "I must say, anforae are doing very well. I've seen a lot of anforae, modern anforae of course, with stainless steel hardware applied. They are perfectly closed, so not with open air like in the natural wine, orange wine world, where the wines are oxidized. They use this new kind of anforae which are perfectly closed, so there is no oxidation, but there is an exchange of oxygen with the atmosphere, so it is good for the wine, as there is no electricity like in stainless steel. You know there is some kind of electrical interaction with wine and stainless steel, but this is avoided with concrete and anforae."
While the original anforae were made of terracotta, some modern versions are ceramic. Sabellico observes that most examples today are terracotta, as this allows the wine to breathe inside, even though it is a limited amount of oxygen let in by the terracotta. He adds that except for four of five wineries, there are no producers that rely entirely on anforae. "I do see however, that they are being used almost everywhere in Italy because the chief enologist wants to experiment these days."
Going native
Sabellico is quick to point out the viticultural work in the fields as evidence of improvement in the Italian wine industry.
"Over the past 30 years we learned a lot about our native varieties and how to manage the vineyard. So all the vineyards of the time were replanted with modern and qualitative criteria. This is number one. Second, in 30 years, we had a dramatic shift in weather. Now we feel that we make the harvest one month before compared to 30 years ago. This means the temperature pattern has changed. We now have perfect maturations where we did not have perfect maturations. So this is a completely new scheme for the winemaker – perfectly ripe varieties and no need to add flavor, just preserve the flavors that are already in the bunches of grapes."
Sabellico notes the overall quality of today's Italian wines as the result of several factors, especially as producers study which means they will implement in their vineyards and cellars.
"With this research, they exalt the qualities of native varieties and this is evident with white wines improving so much," Sabellico remarks. "You think of denominations like Verdicchio, Soave, Lugana, Custoza and Vernaccia di San Gimignano that have been made as commodity wines to be cheap in big stainless steel tanks. Now they are researching, they are investigating, experimenting new ways how to make a great Vernaccia di San Gimignano, a great Soave, a great Lugana.
"So there is improvement on the agronomical side and the enological side. Once they cut these bunches of grapes and bring them to the cellar, they want to experiment how to extract the best flavors from these native varieties. Because Italy is not famous for Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Chardonnay, it is famous for Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, Vernaccia, Fiano and so on. So they are concentrating on the expression of these varieties."
December 07, 2020 at 06:06AM
https://ift.tt/3ggjkpB
Italy's Mr Wine Sees a Bright Future - Wine-Searcher
https://ift.tt/31lUVcw
Wine
No comments:
Post a Comment