#WineStudio Nino Franco

Everyone knows that Prosecco is on fire......did somebody say brunch?  Last week I shared about a quality-level Prosecco worth exploring with my piece: Prosecco....Not Just for Mimosas.

What is #WineStudio?

#WineStudio is an online Twitter-based educational program produced by Tina Morey, Certified Sommelier who's been in the food and wine industry for over twenty years. Each month a different producer is selected, along with a lineup of wines from their portfolio. Anyone can participate in the weekly Twitter chats, yet only a select few are chosen to receive samples to accompany the conversation. Every Tuesday at 6pm (Pacific time), Tina hosts the group on Twitter at the WineStudio hashtag. Usually accompanying her is someone affiliated with the producer, such as the winemaker, owner, salesperson, etc. Tina describes it as part instruction and part wine tasting. Discussion topics include: the producer history, the grapes, tourism, terroir, regional culture, food, etc. For each new topic Tina has seen dozens of original content pieces created, thousands of interactions via social media and millions of impressions created on our specific topic.

Last week I shared a post (check it out HERE) about Prosecco and discussed the quality to be found in Congeliano Valdiobbiadene DOCG. For just a small step up in price ($15-$20 vs $10-$15) you can get a decent step up in quality…..and who doesn’t want that?! Here we explore a producer who is one of the pioneers of quality Prosecco.

In September 2017 WineStudio students delved into wines from Nino Franco. The winery, located at the foot of the Prealps, was founded in 1919 by Antonio Franco in Valdobbiadene. Today the 4th generation of the Franco family is at the helm. It started with Antonio, then to his son Nino, then to his son Primo, and now Primo’s daughter, Silvia.

Below are my notes from the wines tasted as well as some notes directly from the winery.

Rustico Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG

Rustico Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG $19

“Rustico” is connected to the old local tradition of making wine using a short second fermentation in the bottle and leaving the sediments in the wine. Although no longer the technique, the name has remained. This wine is a beautiful pale lemon color with white flower (honeysuckle) and green fruit (pear, green apple) on the nose. Super duper creamy on the palate. This wine is crisp and fruity...everything I want in a Prosecco.

Brut Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG $27

I’d like to think that I’d call this wine in a blind tasting. It has a Prosecco nose with both floral and stone fruit easily detectable. This wine has a more sophisticated palate than a “usual” Prosecco. Nice and dry, as I like it, with great stone fruit on the finish.

Primo Franco Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG $29

This wine was interesting from the get-go. First off, I did not recognize the closure on this wine. In fact, I had never seen it before. I had to consult with my WineStudio pals who clued me into the “agrafe closure” which is used traditionally with Champagne. Peter Liem of Champagneguide.net gives this description:

Agrafe—Literally means "staple" (as in Swingline); in Champagne, this is a large metal clip used to secure the cork before capsules were invented, typically during the second fermentation and aging in bottle. A bottle secured with this clip is said to be agrafé.

Photo courtesy of: thewinecentre.co.za

This wine has a nice depth of flavors, including tart green/stone fruit, delicate white flowers, and a surprising, yet pleasant, savory note.

Grave Di Stecca Brut Sparkling $49

Fun fact: the grapes for this wine are sourced exclusively from an ancient origin vineyard called (you guessed it!) “Grave di Stecca”. This wine is deep gold color and in one of our Twitter chats, the Nino Franco representative we were chatting with said this is ”more like a sparkling Grand Cru Chablis”. Great comparison!

That is just a snapshot of the Nino Franco Prosecco portfolio. The next time you are in the market for a sparkling wine, why not try out Prosecco Conegliano Valdobbiadene DOCG, as you can get a quite good level of quality at a price that won’t break the bank, as many options fall under $20 a bottle.

Cheers!

Up Your Wine Game: How do Bubbles Get in Bubbly?

Most people can wrap their heads around how alcohol is made. It’s a simple fermentation process. Yeast converts sugar (i.e. grape juice) into alcohol (i.e. wine). Bada-bing, bada-boom, you have yourself some vino. If we’re talking about spirits, a distillation process happens after the fermentation, but that’s a different blog entry!

I have always LOVED bubbly. All kinds of bubbly: serious champagnes, nutty Cavas, or fruit-forward Prosecco. Team bubbly all the way. As a novice wine drinker a few years back, I did always wonder how the hell the bubbles got into the bubbly and how the bottles literally didn’t explode from the pressure. Well, here are the steps to get bubbles in bubbly. What I’m going to explain to you is the “traditional method” or the “methode champenoise”. This style is used in Champagne, Cremants in France, and with Cavas from Spain.

Step 1: a still, dry base wine is made (usually in stainless steel tanks) as described above (fermentation: yeast converts sugar into alcohol). If you were just making regular non-sparkling wine, you’d be done. This is the basic process that is done day in and day out to make still wine.

Step 2: That wine is then bottled. After the wine is put in the bottle, additional sugar and yeast (i.e. the liquer de tirage) is added for a second fermentation to take place IN the bottle. A closure is added to the bottle. The 2nd fermentation creates carbon dioxide (CO2) inside the bottle as the yeast is eating the sugar. This CO2 has nowhere to go and essentially carbonates the wine and creates bubbles!

Step 3: During this time period yeast autolysis takes place. Yeast autolysis is when the dead yeast cells (i.e. lees) breakdown in the wine. These dead yeast cells impart what are called autolytic flavors. This is pretty much what makes Champagne taste like Champagne. The flavors include: yeastiness, toasty flavors, biscuit flavors, and doughiness. The length of time the wine is spent sur lie (i.e. resting on the lees) is determined by how much of these autolytic flavors the winemaker desires. It can be anywhere from a few weeks to a few years!

Step 4: next is the riddling of the wine. The bottle is slowly moved from a horizontal to a tilted vertical position. This moves the sediment to the top of the bottle. This process can be done manually or by machine.

The bottles have to be manually turned

Step 5: Disgorgement follows in which the neck of the bottle is submerged in cold brine to freeze it. The closure is removed and that frozen sediment piece pops out.

Frozen Sediment

Frozen Sediment post-disgorgement

Step 6: A dosage (or a liquer de expedition) is added back to the bottle. This is a small amount of base wine and sugar. The amount of dosage added determines the level of sweetness of the wine. The bottle is then sealed with a sparking wine closure (including the wire cage) so that the contents are under pressure until that cork is popped.

So the next time you're at a cocktail party and Champagne is served, you can share with everyone how bubbles get in bubbly.  Answer: it's due to the 2nd fermentation in which CO2 is generated in the bottle and cannot escape.  The result: bubbles.  Voila, you just upped your wine game!

Fun Fact: On a bottle of sparkling wine, how many times does the wire cage have to be turned you get it off?  Answer: Six…..always six turns.

Up Your Wine Game: Cork v Screw Cap

I get asked about screw caps A LOT. If a wine has a screw cap, does it mean that the wine is cheap? Crappy? Should I steer clear of screw caps? Is cork better? My answer is that it usually does not matter if your wine has a screw cap or a cork. Here is a quick 101 Lesson on Wine Closures:

Natural Cork: Cork is the traditional closure found on a bottle of wine. Cork stoppers are made from the bark of a cork oak tree. As a general rule, the cork industry is considered sustainable and a cork stopper is considered the most environmentally friendly of all the stopper options. The trees do not have to be cut down or killed in order to harvest the cork. The cork is literally stripped from the outside of the bark of the tree. It then grows back and the process is repeated every few years. Cork closures are romanticized in the wine industry as opposed to screw caps. People look at a cork on a wine and get all warm and fuzzy inside. The wine opener has to be pulled out and the age-old process of opening a bottle of wine must commence. The downside of cork is that a bottle can get “corked”. Most people have heard this term, but don’t exactly know what it means. A wine that is “corked” or has the presence of “cork taint” means that there is TCA (which is a mold or fungus) present in the wine.  A corked wine smells like wet cardboard. A wine gets “corked” when mold enters the wine’s environment. It can happen one of three ways: mold can get in the winemaking equipment, mold can get in the oak barrel, or mold can get in the crevices of the cork, as cork is a porous, natural material.

Synthetic Cork: There is also a synthetic cork made of plastic compounds that looks almost like a real cork. This material is not porous and therefore the possibility of having a “corked” wine is significantly reduced. The downside is the use of plastic and chemicals to make them. Some would say synthetic corks are not the most eco-friendly option. I don’t necessarily seek to avoid a synthetic cork (meaning that it’s not going to stop me from buying a bottle of wine), but it’s not something I like. Who wants plastics and chemicals all up in their wine?

Screw Cap: Aluminum screw caps are becoming more and more common. Aussie and NZ winemakers were the first to use them in quantity, and now you see them in more and more (usually New World) wines. Screw caps are great because they prevent oxygen from getting in contact with your wine. A screw cap will preserve the freshness and the the nose (i.e. the aromatics) of the wine, but it will not allow a wine to mature or continue to age in the bottle. So essentially, if a winemaker bottled and sealed a wine with a screw cap today, July 27, 2015, what the wine tastes like today, it will taste like forever. The screw cork will pretty much suspend the wine the moment it is sealed, and allow you to enjoy that exact wine (as it tasted that day) for much longer than a regular cork. The downside to screw caps is that they could subject the wine to reduction. Reduction is caused by the wines lack of contact with oxygen. Screw caps are obviously not porous, so they do not allow oxygen to pass to the wine. Reduced wine smells like sweaty onions or socks (no bueno) and is especially common in New World wines with screw caps. Decanting can help with slightly reduced wines.

My problem is that so many wines get better in the bottle, as wines are living, breathing things. That time in bottle allows the secondary and tertiary aromas to come through, which adds complexity and interest to the wine. If you’ve ever had an aged Bordeaux or a 20 year old Rioja that smelled like cigars and a musty basement, those were most certainly not screw capped wines. I advocate for the use of screw caps in wines that are deemed “drink now”.  Wines that you are not going to cellar or hold on to for an extended period of time. Your clean, crisp whites, roses, and light, fruity reds are perfect examples of wines that would be just fine under screw caps.

At the end of the day, how many of us are seriously cellaring our wines or buying bottles that we need to hold on to? Like I mentioned in a previous post, most wines that people buy are consumed within 1 hour after purchase. If that is the case with you, the closure is not of utmost importance. But now you have the knowledge to make an informed decision. If you bought a Cuisinart wine fridge and want to stock it or maybe a friend just bought a house and has a mini-cellar that they’d like to fill up, you know to not buy any wines with a screw cap. You’ll be buying a wine that you want to age a bit, and hence you need a cork closure.  But otherwise, eat, drink, and be merry!