Picturesque Ca’ del Bosco

Along with wineries such as Guido Berlucchi and Bellavista, Ca’ del Bosco is a big player and one of the leading representatives of Franciacorta in Italy and the rest of the world.   It has 150 hectares of vines, 90 employees and sort of super cask which is used once or twice a year. It holds 300,000 litres to ensure that all 400,000 bottles in a batch of sparkling wine taste the same.  Back in 1999, Nicholas Belfrage called the winery ‘indisputably one of the world’s most impressive wineries’ (Barolo to Valpolicella, Faber, p. 316) and it remains that, despite the likes of Petra or numerous new world wineries which have been built since.  In order to convey this, I have chosen to concentrate here on photos – with a few words of course.

And the good news is, it is not just the winery which is impressive, but the wines are very special too. We tasted the Cuvée Prestige Rosé, the Satèn 2007 and the Dosage Zéro 2007, along with the everyday white and red table wines.  The Rosé spends virtually three years on the lees, the vintage wines four years.  For me, the style of the wine is about substance and ‘polish’.  They are classic Franciacorta in that the ripe fruit is the dominant note and the autolytic, yeasty notes secondary, but the wines are more intense, bigger and but still balanced and sophisticated in comparison to the norm.  Clearly there is great expertise here to create large numbers of high-quality bottles – 800, 000 a year of the Cuvée Prestige for example.  Not surprisingly, the Curtefranca white and red are also highly competent wines.  But the sparkling wines is where the real interest lies.

With thanks to Cristina (who as well as being a very good host has a rare knowledge of pre-Norman English texts) and all at Ca’ del Bosco – the blue wolves seem to be good guardians to you all.

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