From Valdobbiadene in the heart of Prosecco country, I was intrigued to see Bellenda’s press information suggesting their wines “break the rules.” This small tasting, however, did show Prosecco that is somewhat out of the ordinary. The wines included a hazy and unfiltered col fondo wine and two wines not made by Prosecco’s ubiquitous charmat or ‘tank method’ of production, but with traditional secondary fermentation in bottle.
A Family Affair
Bellenda was founded by the Cosmo family in 1986. They are based in the hills of Carpesica in Treviso. Carpesica is one of 43 ‘Rives’, distinctive hillsides within the Conegliano-Valdobbiandene Superiore region that may be named as special ‘crus’ on labels, with a minimum of 85% of grapes coming from the named Rive. The two examples of Rive Carpesica here are made by the ‘traditional method’, with second fermentation in individual bottles. That’s extremely rare in Prosecco, the wines spending up to 36 month on the lees before disgorgement.
I attended an online tasting with Umberto Cosmo, where he concentrated on his specific terroir and the house’s unique approach to Prosecco production. Umberto says he encountered so much scepticism about making Prosecco by the traditional method from other producers, but points out that the charmat method was only developed in the 1930s, and the area made sparkling wines long before that. Those must have been made with second fermentation in bottle, though the big difference he points out is that then the wines had 30 – 50g/l of sugar. Today, his Sei Uno has just 2g/l. “Sugar,” he says, “can hide a lot of faults in a sparkling wine.”
Here in their higher location there are large temperature shifts with up to 20°C difference between day and night. But this is the north of Italy and that can also present a real danger from forst or hail at times: “but there’s nothing we can do about that,” says Umberto with a shrug and a smile.
Bellenda is based in the east of Conegliano-Valdobbiadene, on some of the younger soils, but soils rich in limestone. Around 80% of their vineyard is planted to Glera, the single grape of white Prosecco. The other 20% includes red grapes for the production of still red wine (Colli di Conegliano Rosso) as well as Chardonnay and Pinot Noir for classic method sparkling wines. As Prosecco must be 85% Glera, such wines are not bottled as Prosecco DOCG.
The family’s environmental credentials appear to be very sound, with no herbicides used, pruning residue recovered and used for energy, the winery run almost entirely on solar power and special attention paid to biodiversity, including the retention of large areas of forest within the estate borders.
The Wines
I thought this was a particulary good selection of Prosecco wines – some of the best I have tasted. Even in their tank-method San Fermo, arguably the most ‘typical’ of modern day Prosecco styles, there is so much more complexity and elegance than the standard supermarket £10 bottle.