Think of a Ferrari and you think of a gorgeous sports car, right? A sleek, sexy icon of pleasure that personifies quality and luxury. So when I was first poured a glass of sparkling wine called Ferrari, I made the obvious assumption: the producers wanted to cash in on the automobile’s aura of allure.
“Ferrari is a very common last name in Italy,” says charming winemaker Marcello Lunelli (aren’t Italians always charming?) whose family has owned the famous, award-winning brand for more than 50 years. “It is like Smith or Jones in America.”
Marcello goes on to explain the exciting story of his family, which begins in romance novel fashion with the birth of Ferrari’s founder, Giulio Ferrari, in Trentino, Italy in 1902. Ferrari was the first to successfully plant Chardonnay grapes and make sparkling wine in the “Metodo Classico” style, winning his first international award in 1906. In his will, the childless Ferrari left his wine estate to his neighbor and friend, Marcello’s grandfather, who, with his sons, took the winery to even more exalted levels.
Yet ironically, this sparkling wine shares much in common with the sports car, especially given its “luxury” status in the world’s sparkling wine world. If you are new to sparklers, one of the key components of quality is the method by which the wine undergoes its secondary fermentation.
Quality sparklers, such as those found in the Champagne AOC and also Italy’s Trenta DOC (home of Ferrari), are fermented in the bottle in which they are sold. This is called the “Methode Champagne” or “Traditional Method” in France, and the “Metodo Classico” in Italy.
Another component is the careful selection of the grapes grown on the best terroir (customarily a delimitated region with rules and regulations with regard to viticulture and vinification) with only the most perfect, ripe grapes selected. The third component is the ability of the wine to age.
Long popular in Italy, Ferrari sparkling wines are now making their way to America, and on a recent roadshow I was one of a select number of journalists invited to taste the wines in a seminar led by Marcello, and with cuisine prepared at the very elegant, very historic Barbetta restaurant.
During the informal seminar, Marcello said his top wine, the Riserva del Fondatore, spends more time on the lees (dead yeast cells, which give the wines their character, flavor, and body) than the DOC rules call for in order to give the wine more richness and complexity.
Barbetta is indeed an elegant restaurant with a stellar chef. During the reception, its gracious owner, Laura Maioglo, explained that her father has owned it since 1906. The cuisine was inspired by Piedmont, home of Ms. Maigolo’s ancestors.
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