Prato. Work Ahead

Prato (124 North Park, Avenue, Winter Park, FL), because of its association with LUMA on Park, arguably one of the best restaurants in the Greater Orlando area, was highly anticipated by the restaurant-going community so it did not require a lot of effort from @wineontheway to gain my agreement to visit the restaurant on Thursday last to celebrate Mrs@wineontheway's birthday.  The restaurant had had two soft-opening events on the prior Saturday and Monday and was now open to the general public.

Prato seeks to "... seamlessly blend Italian classics with modern techniques and seasonal ingredients" in order to meet a perceived market need.  The restaurant is managed by Concentrics Hospitality Solutions (also manages LUMA), the sister organization to Atlanta-based Concentrics Restaurants, itself the owner of concept restaurants such as ONE. midtown kitchen, TWO. urban licks, and Tap.  The chef at Prato is Brandon McGlarney (also the chef at LUMA) with Matthew Cargo as the chef di cuisine.  The restaurant features a long bar, two Acunto wood-burning ovens imported from Naples (Italy not Florida), and patio seating.  Our long-term positive experiences at LUMA had us anticipating a stellar evening.

Dinner was at 7:00 pm and we arrived on time.  I was pleased to see that the restaurant provided complimentary valet service because that section of Park Avenue is a parking wasteland.  My first view of the restaurant was of the outside seating area which appeared to be pretty well full.  The signage on the building was understated and subtly lit.  The French doors had been retracted and this allowed a clear view deep into the restaurant.

We made our way to the Greeter's Station to see if our party had arrived.  They had and we were shown to the table.  I noticed the bar as we were being taken to our seats.  It ran almost the entire length of the front section of the restaurant, was well lit and stocked, and had three wide-screen TVs at the topmost portion of each side.

We sat down and exchanged pleasantries with our dinner companions and proceeded to open a bottle of 1995 Ducru.  The menu was on the table and, upon examination, seemed to have a more-than-adequate selection of trattoria-style offerings.  The beverage selection was on the back of the menu and I was impressed to see two (count them, two) Franciacorta selections: Bellavista Cuvee Brut NV and Ca' del Bosco Cuvee Prestige NV.  These guys were cooking with gas.

We ordered two Roast Pumpkin soups for our starters while the @wineontheways ordered Chicken Wing Candito and Escarole Caesar.  The chicken and salad arrived before the soups so we all dug into the chicken while we waited.  One soup arrived.  Where was the other?  The waitress had not heard my order so had not placed it.  But, no worries.  She would order it straight away.  It took another 15 minutes before the soup finally appeared and by this time the @wineontheway entrees had arrived.

For our main course we had ordered a Roast Chicken for two with Broccoli Siciliano and Marble Potatoes.  When the dish arrived it was very salty so we told the waitress to take it back and we would have two orders of the Chicken Candito instead (They had been excellent first time around; slightly crispy on the outside with a tasty topping and presented in a skillet sans handle.). Shortly after we sent the Roasted Chicken back, a second Roasted Chicken order showed up.  We are perplexed.  We explained to the server that we had already received our order, rejected it, and re-ordered so there was no way that this order was ours.  She appeared confused but we could provide no further assistance.  About 10 minutes later a second server appeared with another order of Roasted Chicken and we had to go through the spiel once again.  He looked even more mystified.  All the while we were still awaiting the two orders of Chicken Candito.  It finally arrived but it was on a white plate -- rather than the skillet -- and it appeared to be undercooked vis a vis the first order.  We finally requested a manager.  He listened to our concerns with a sympathetic demeanor then took the chicken away with a promise to set things right.

At this time our server tells us that we probably should have gotten the special.  What special, I ask.  She takes a note pad out of her apron pocket and proceeds to read the daily specials to me.  I point out to her that those are normally shared with customers prior to ordering rather than after they have returned two separate orders to the kitchen.  After what seemed like a lifetime, the Candito Chicken arrived.  It was good but it could not salvage the evening.

While I was disappointed with my food experience I know that this team will whip things into shape sooner rather than later.  There are some things, however, which may require a hard second look.  For example, the bar is impressive but there is very little space between it and the seats on its north side; and the problem is compounded by oversized barstools.  If someone is standing and speaking to a person sitting at the bar, the passageway is effectively blocked.  If the server is taking an order, the passageway is blocked.  The busboys have to pass the empty plates over the heads of the customers as they take dirty stuff towards the back.  This state of affairs will result in customer dis-satisfaction over the  long haul if allowed to continue.

I also had some issue with the chairs used for outside seating.  These plastic chairs are bright red in color and appear cheap and insubstantial next to the polished brown wood of the tables.  I am not a design expert so I could be wrong on this one but I did find the contrast jarring.

Because of the positioning of the TVs, they can be comfortably viewed from the booths adjacent to the bar.  Patrons seating at the bar, however, have to look up to view the TV in a fashion that would eventually put strain on the neck muscles.

I will give the restaurant a little time and then revisit.  This is a deep-pocketed organization so they will keep at it until they get it right.  The owners and management team have a reputation for quality and that will shine through once the bugs are zapped.  It will be interesting to see if/how the structural issues are handled.

Colli Orientali del Friuli Sub-Region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia

The agenda on the final day of the European Wine Bloggers 2011 post-conference trip to Friuli-Venezia Giulia called for: a visit to Bastianich Winery; a walking tour of Cividale del Friuli; and participation in a wine tasting and light lunch with members of the Schioppettino di Prepotto Producers Association.  All of the identified locations are contained within the Colli Orientali del Friuli, a region that competes vigorously with its southern neighbor Collio for the title of best zone in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia wine region.  The characteristics of the Colli Orientali del Friuli sub-region are detailed in this post.

Colli Orientali del Friuli -- the name translates to "eastern hills of Friuli" -- is a predominantly north-to-south, 2300-hectare strip of land that is located in the province of Udine and is famed for its rich, mineral-driven wines.  The region encompasses 14 communes that are arrayed in a crescent shape to the east of the capital city and is bordered by Friuli Grave to the west and Collio to the south.

As is the case for Collio, the region's climate is moderated by the Julian Alps and the Adriatic Sea.  It experiences hot summers and long autumns and the occasional hailstorm.  It is cooler and damper in the north adjacent to the alpine foothills.

The soil is similar to the soil of Collio, its southern neighbor.

Soil at Bastianich Winery, Colli Orientale del Friuli

Vineyards in the sub-region sit at elevations which average 400m and are terraced.  The vineyards are located in the row of hills bordering the Plains of Udine and run from Buttrico in the south to Tarcento in the north.  The best vineyards can be found in the south of the DOC in close proximity to the northern vineyards of Collio.

The DOC is permitted to produce red, white, and rosé wines which can be dry, off-dry, or sweet.  Sixty-four percent of the zone's production is white wine and 50% of the red is Merlot.  In addition to the DOC wines, three Colli Orientale del Friuli sweet wines have attained DOCG status: Ramandolo (Verduzzo), Colli del Friuli Picolit (Picolit), and Colli del Friuli Picolit-Cialla (Picolit from the Cialla zone).  Varietal wines must contain a minimum of 85% of the stated  variety with the remainder, if any, permitted varieties of the same color.

Colli Orientali del Friuli is sub-divided into three zones: Ramandolo, Cialla, and Corno di Rosazzo.  Ramandolo, located in the northeastern portion of the sub-region, is probably the oldest wine area in Friuli.  It is located in the hill country overlooking the town of Nimis and its steep slopes average 400 meters above sea level.  It is the coolest, and most rain-soaked, of the three zones.  Ramandolo has a DOCG classification -- Verduzzo di Ramandolo -- for wine grown from a local clone of the Verduzzo grape.  Cialla lies in a small valley that runs northeast to southwest in the middle portion of the sub-region and produces dry (Cialla Bianco and Rosso), off-dry (Picolit and Verduzzo), and sweet.  The southern zone, Corno di Rosazzo, is located in hill country and features east-, southeast-, and southwest-facing slopes.

The Hybrid George M. Taber: Review of A Toast to Bargain Wines

George M. Taber, author of the famed Judgement in Paris, participated in a number of panels, and gave the Keynote speech at the recently held European Wine Bloggers conference (Brescia, Italy, October 12th - 14th), all on the same topic: storytelling.  In these public appearances, Mr. Taber mentioned his soon-to-be-released book A Toast to Bargain Wines -- even reading some passages from the book in an early morning workshop -- and I, at that time, resolved to acquire and read said tome when it became available.

The full title of the book is A Toast to Bargain Wines: How innovators, iconoclasts, and winemaking revolutionaries are changing the way the world drinks.  I found some dissonance between the title and the layout of the book, on one hand, and the title and the content on the other. 

In Taber's three previous books (Judgement in Paris, To Cork or not to Cork, and In Search of Bacchus), an average of 280 pages was devoted to the telling of the "story." In this book, what I consider "the story" runs for approximately 158 pages, with another 123 pages taken up by a buyer's guide to bargain wines; material which, in my humble opinion, and based on the title, is referential and, as such, would have been better positioned in an appendix. I read the "story" component of the book and set the reference material aside for use when needed. It is not clear to me that this is the best medium for delivery of point-of-use information such as a wine-buyers guide anyway. If you are in the grocery store and decide that you want to purchase a bargain wine, an electronic reference source would have greater utility.

In contrast to its prominence within the book, the presence of the buyer's guide is not indicated in either the main or sub- titles. At the wine bloggers conference we were told that our stories should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. This story has a beginning, a middle, an end, and a buyer's guide.

In terms of organization, the book is divided into three major sections: A Global Business in Turmoil; The Iconoclasts; and The Wine Revolutionaries.  Each of these sections is preceded by a short introductory paragraph which, in my view, could have been aggregated at the front of the book to provide an overall roadmap.  I needed a navigation aid through the first four chapters; something to tie them to the title.  The first chapter (titled Embarassing Moments in Wine History), for example, seemed to have no place in the book until Mr. Taber ties it to novice tasting capability in a closing paragraph.  In Brescia Mr. Taber had recommended using an anectdote as a "grabber" to start a story and, maybe, that was the intent here but, if so, it had me faked out.

The book was slow-moving and somewhat non-specific through Chapters 3 and 4.  In the chapter titled Unravelling the Mysteries of Taste, Mr. Taber spends a lot of time on Tim Hanni and his battle to have the wine establishment understand that people taste differently.  The inclusion of Hanni's Taste Sensitivity Assessment was interesting as it helped in understanding some of the differences between reviewers' reports and helped me to understand where I stood on his scale.  While interesting, this chapter seemed broadly applicable and no significant attempt was made to tie it to the main topic of the book.  I raise the same issue with the chapter on wine judging competitions.  At the end of the story Mr Taber tried to tie these all into the reader being an arbiter of his/her own taste but by this time the damage had been done.  The attempt to correlate should have been done up front.

The story reached its pinnacle in the wine revolutionaries section and, specifically, the stories around the introduction of Two Buck Chuck and [yellow tail].  This is George Taber at his best, tieing primary and secondary sources together in a tightly spun yarn which is both entertaining and revealing.

One of the sessions at the European Wine Bloggers conference was titled Stories Never Told.  One of the shortcomings of this book is that it does not adequately tell the consumer story.  Iconoclasts, winemakers, gatekeepers all get their day in the sun; not so the customer.  When the writer segments the market, it is from the producer/retailer perspective: luxury; ultra-premium; premium; low cost; and extreme value.  No attention is paid to population segmentation of the type that has been discussed by Lorey and Poutet and Marion Demoisser -- and written on extensively in this blog -- which segments customers by drinking profile: regular drinkers; occasional drinkers; and non-wine drinkers.  The issue that I would have liked to see addressed was whether the bargain wines covered in the book are penetrating the regular-drinker segment (as implied in the subtitle) or whether they are increasing the number of drinkers by positively impacting the actions of the occasional and non-wine-drinking customers. This is a story that is of exceptional importance, especially to markets such as France which is experiencing declines in regular drinkers and increases in occasional and non-wine drinkers.

I have bought George Taber's books in the past because of his capabilities in research and storytelling.  In this book, Mr. Taber makes himself a part of the story.  Beginning in 2009, he blind-tasted five or six wines per day in order to come up with the final best buy list included in the book.  In the section on gatekeepers, Mr Taber warned us about their role and positioning as arbiters of taste, yet he plays the role of gatekeeper in this book.  And he does not even alert us as to his Sensitivity Taste Assessment so that we can get a sense of where his taste lies; that is after warning us in the body of the document to pick a gatekeeper who is most aligned with our taste and to then stick with that individual. 

I get the storyteller Taber brand; the jury is still out on the hybrid (storyteller-gatekeeper) Taber.

Fulvio Bressan, Bressan Wines: Top-15 Winemaker (Self-Styled) in Collio and Isonzo DOCs

We had started out the first day of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia EWBC 2011 post-conference trip behind schedule and things worsened as the day progressed.  After a drive through the Collio hills, a brief trip over the border into Slovenia, and a stop at our hotel to check in, we made our way to Enoteca di Cormons for a scheduled tasting and dinner with Collio producers.

The event was being held on the floor above the shop and, after climbing a flight of stairs, we debouched into a room decorated with banners and pennants in the ceilings and with producers manning wine-endowed tables arrayed adjacent to the room walls.  The producers were gathered together in little groups but quickly moved to man their respective tables when we arrived.  The producers were all conservatively attired, both in color and style, save one; an orange shirt stood out starkly amidst this sea of conformance.  This was my first glimpse of Fulvio Bressan.

The President of the Consorzio stepped to a makeshift podium and welcomed us to the region and then asked each producer to introduce him/herself.  The producers did so in a clockwise fashion and in reserved terms (matching their attire) except for the one wearing the orange shirt.  This individual stood out in that his physical makeup stood in stark contrast to a producer group that was greyhound-like in appearance.  His self-introduction was confident and strong in contrast to the rather tepid introductions that preceded and followed his.  He was Fulvio Bressan of Bressan Wines.  This is no shrinking violet, I thought.  More of a Barnum and Bailey type.  At the conclusion of the introductions, the President declared the tasting underway.

I began to work the room in a clockwise fashion beginning with the producer directly in front of me.  After working my way through a number of wines, I noticed a congregation around Bressan's table and he appeared to be holding court.  One of the bloggers at Bressan's table was @aleksimethonen (my newest best friend) so I ambled over to see what the fuss was all about. When I got to the table, @aleksimethonen suggested that I taste the Pinot Nero.  It had a great Pinot nose but with added richness and depth.  Ripe red fruit, but balanced, and the absence of oak associated with Pinot.  Fulvio stated that he picked his fruit late in order to ensure full ripeness.

As Bressan buttonholed passing bloggers and poured them his wine, he kept up a steady stream of conversation, with one liners ranging from outrageous to outrageously funny.  As he poured wine into the glass of one taster he remarked, "my surname is on the bottle, you think I will put shit inside."  He confided that he was a ninth-generation farmer and one of only 15 serious winemakers in the region.  "Most of the others are here to make money," he says.  "I need to live but beyond that ..."

Bressan properties cover 25 hectares in DOCs Collio and Isonzo, 20 hectares of which are planted to vine.  Fulvio insisted that quality wines are made in the vineyard ("A cellar is only a place where you store the wine until it is ready to be bottled.") and that it begins with the soil.  The Bressan soil is topped by a 1-meter layer of gravel through which the roots penetrate as they search for water and nutrients.  The gravel aids in the ripening of fruit (by reflecting the sun's rays) but also allows water to pass through to the clay and marl levels where it is captured and held.

The vines in the Brerssan vineyards are mostly between 50- and 100-years old.  Grapes from vines that are younger than 7-years old never make it into Bressan wines.  Guyot training is used on the estate with one shoot and four or five buds for each vine.  Plant density is 5000 vines/hectare.

In terms of vineyard management, Fulvio says that he used to be biodynamic but isn't anymore.  He claims to have visited many "biodynamic" farms and seen weed killer being used.  "You can gain biodynamic certification but the certifying agency is not with you 24/7," he says.  "Only the producer knows what goes into the wine and a lot of the stuff that makes it into the wine is the shit they put into the ground."  Fulvio does some winter pruning (by hand), but does no green harvesting ("Old vines are self-regulating"), has no grass in the vineyard, does not irrigate, and sprays copper only when necessary.

Fulvio feels that you can't have high volumes and high quality.  "It is a tradeoff."  He produces 3.5 tons/hectare, well below the DOC Collio limit of 10 tons/hectare.  In addition, his viticultural practices of no green harvest and no grass put him in violation of DOC Isonzo requirements.  In light of the foregoing Bressan declassifies his wines and sells them as IGT.

"I drink coke because it is made by a professional chemist and it is even and consistent every time I drink it.  I don't drink much of today's wine because they are made by a bunch of amateur chemists."  No chemical manipulation of Bressan wines is practiced.

The vinicultural practices of the estate are illustrated in the figure below.  After the grapes have been pressed (Step 2), they are delicately pumped into temperature-controlled stainless steel vats.  Indigenous yeasts are used to jump start alcoholic fermentation (According to Fulvio, using synthetic yeasts would be akin to giving his wife to his best friend.).  The time between harvesting and the completion of final maceration is approximately four weeks.

Bressan Viniculture

At this time Fulvio turned to a discussion of oak casks.  "What is oak really required for," he asked.  It was a rhetorical question.  "It is for oxygenation of wine." he said, answering his own question.  "Why then do I want wood tannins in my wine?  Why then do I need coconut and vanilla in my wine?  These flavors are not of the vine." In order to ensure that these flavors do not make it into his wines, he never uses 'uncleaned' new oak.  I raised a querulous eyebrow.  I had never heard of cleaning new oak.  Fulvio described his new-oak-cleaning process for my benefit:

1. Fill the new oak barrel with a mixture of sea salt and well water and let sit for 10 days
2. Dump out that mixture and fill barrel with water; let sit for five days
3. Taste water after 5 days.  If still oaky, go back to step 1.  If no oak taste, the barrel is ready for use.

By this time the tasting was almost at an end.  I had spent most of the evening in dialogue with Fulvio and had not visited with all of the producers.  I looked around sheepishly and tried to quickly touch a few of them.

Fulvio's insights were extremely entertaining and his personality was captivating.  I had truly enjoyed our dialogue.

In addition to the Pinot Nero, Bressan produces the following wines.

Reds
Schioppettino
Pignol
Merlot
Cabernet Crown Domains
No. 3 Bressan
Ego
Rosantico

Whites
Carat
Pinot Grigio
Verduzzo

UPDATE: Since the publication of this article, Fulvio Bressan has posted ugly racial comments regarding the Italian Integration Minister on his Facebook page. After a number of defiant posts -- following a social media firestorm prompted by his comments -- Bressan apologized. Notwithstanding that apology, I have drunk my last Bressan wine. See my post here for the full details.

Collio and Isonzo DOCs, Friuili-Venezia Giulia

The DOC Collio (2 hectares) and DOC Isonzo (18 hectares) are sub-zones of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia wine region I briefly describe them below.

DOC Collio

Colli Goriziano, simply called Collio (hillsides), is a crescent-shaped collar of land located in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region and bounded to the west and south by the Judrio and Isonzo Rivers and to the east by the Slovenian border.

The area has a mild temperate climate with cool winds from Central Europe and warm air currents from the Adriatic Sea combining to keep the grapes dry and healthy.  The Julian pre-Alps protect from the biting north winds while the Adriatic, in addition to its warm air currents, reflects solar radiation and, in so doing, aids grape ripening.  Diurnal temperature variation allows ripening in the daytime with acidity retention in the cool nighttime air.  Heavy rainfall (1000-1600 mm on average) provides a reservoir that plant roots can tap into even in the hottest of times.

The soil in the region is called "ponca" and its marl and sandstone strata are rich in calcium carbonate and alkalinity.

A total of 1500 hectares of vine are planted at elevations ranging between 100 and 430 meters and these produce 7,000,000 bottles of aromatic, crisp red and white wines.  Twelve white and five red varietals are permitted and they may be bottled as blends or single varietals.  The primary white grapes are international (Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon, and Chardonnay included) but indigenous varietals (Friulano, Ribolla Gialla, and Malvasia) comprise 20% of the plantings.  Red wines are primarily made from Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, and Merlot.  Most of the wines are fermented and aged  in stainless steel and are made to be drunk young.

Collio is considered one of the most technologically advanced of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia zones in that it was the first to adopt cold fermentation of white wines, refrigerated fermentation tanks, and pneumatic wine presses.  The Consorzio Tutela Vini del Collio (110 members currently), founded in 1964, was among the first wine associations in the country.  The zone was granted DOC status in 1968.  The Collio Consorzio merged with the Carso Consorzio in 2010 and the surviving body is called Consorzio Tutela Vini Collio e Carso.

DOC Isonzo

Isonzo is a small DOC (classified in 1974) lying in the southeastern portion of Friulia-Venezia Giulia.

Source: vinidocisonzo.it

The climate is maritime with the DOC experiencing more rainfall than any of the other regional zones.  The Julian Alps serve as a natural barrier against north winds and there is a constant circulation of warm winds coming off the Adriatic and through the passage offered by the Isonzo River.

The soil on the left bank of the river is rich with clay and red gravel while the soil on the right bank is chalky and layered with white gravel.  The river bed is susceptible to periodic shifting and the resulting floods serve to re-invigorate the soil with minerals from upstream sources.

The requirements for wine production in Isonzo are set by a 110-member producer group called the Consortium for the Protection and Appreciation of Isonzo DOC Wines.  The following mandates apply to the regions' vineyards:

• No more than eight varietals planted in a vineyard
• 3500-4000 vines/hectare
• 60-90 quintals/hectare production
• Irrigation only when necessary
• Grass planted in the vineyard
• Organic integration of soil by utilizing mowing residue
• Two periods of grape-thinning

The varietals found in DOC Isonzo are a subset of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia population.

Combining the foregoing factors yields unique, high-quality wines with exotic aromatic ripeness in DOC Isonzo.

Updated August 25, 2013.

The Friuli-Venezia Giulia Wine Region: Contextualizing an EWBC Post-Trip

The European Wine Bloggers 2011 Conference (recently held in Brescia, Italy) program included two 3-day post-conference tours -- one to Chianti Classico and the other to Friuli-Venezia Giulia -- and, wanting to gain some additional insight into Italian white wines, I opted for the latter.  Twenty-two of the conference attendees were scheduled for the trip and they all showed up on Monday morning bright-eyed, bushy tailed, and ready to embark on this exciting adventure; but, of course, the bus was late.  Starting out late affected all of our activities for the remainder of the day.

It was a 4-hour ride to Villa Russiz and our first scheduled event:  a presentation of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia agro-food industry by ERSA, the body responsible for regional agro-food development and promotion. After some confusion as to where we should actually be, we were shepherded into a classroom where we were treated to a lecture on Friuli-Venezia Giulia by Claudio Fabbro, an Italian lecturer and wine historian.

Friuli-Venezia Giulia, the most north-eastern of the Italian wine regions, is bounded by Austria to the north, the Gulf of Trieste to the South, Slovenia to the east, and the wine region of Veneto to the west.  The region's location, as well as its history, has endowed it with a richness of diverse cultural influences.

Source: broker-wine.com

The Friuli-Venezia landscape can be divided into four major areas: (i) the mountainous region to the north which includes the Carnian and Julian alps with peaks in excess of 2000 meters; (ii) a hilly area that is south of the mountains and along the Slovenian border; (iii) the central plain which is characterized by poor soil which has been made fertile through irrigation; and (iv) the coastal flatlands which is low and sandy to the west of the Isonzo River and rocky to its east.

In general, Friuli-Venezia Giulia has a humid, temperate climate which varies according to the landscape; areas to the north experience an alpine continental climate while those in the south experience a Mediterranean climate.  The Alpine system protects the region from icy north winds but air movement from east to west causes low pressure systems which can bring summertime hailstorms and thunderstorms.  Being open to the Adriatic, the region experiences Sirocco winds which can bring heavy rainfall.

The climate is modified by the presence of the Adriatic Sea and the Alps resulting in warmer winter temperatures and cooler summer temperatures.  Mean temperature in the summertime is 22.8℃ (73℉) and mean rainfall is 1524 mm (60 inches). Vineyards to the north and east lie above the level of the fog that flows in occasionally from the Adriatic and this allows the grapes to take advantage of the increased hang time to promote phenolic ripening.  The diurnal shift is somewhat mitigated by maritime influences closer to the coast.  There is a constant breeze known as "la bora" flowing in from the Adriatic and this provides great air flow in the vineyards as well as serving as a deterrent to fungal outbreaks.

The soil in the region is calcium-rich marl and sandstone in hilly regions and clay, sand, and gravel elsewhere.

The region is noted for small, high-quality, family-run vineyards producing fresh, rich, fruity, textured wines from a large number of indigenous and international varietals.  As the figures below show, Italian wine production (millions of hectoliters) has been experiencing a slow, steady decline over the years while Friuli-Venezia production (thousands of hectoliters) has experienced an 11% percent increase 2009 over 2008 and a 5% increase 2010 over 2009.  In 2010, Friuli-Venezia production represented 2.6% of all Italian wine production.

Italian Wine Production (Source: ERSA Presentation)

Friuli Venezia Wine Production (Source: ERSA Presentation)

Friuli Venezia DOC and DOCG Wine Production (Source: ERSA Presentation)

Friuli is best known for its white wines grown on south-facing slopes of the region's terraced vineyards (ronchi).  As shown in the charts below, the top five non-native varieties are better represented in the region's wines than Tocai Friulano, the leading indigenous varietal.  The distribution of varietals in the region can be directly traced to rulership influences over the span of its history.

Source: ERSA Presentation

Indigenous Grape Varieties (Source: ERSA Presentation)

This, then, would be our "theatre of operations" for the next two and one-half days.  During that time we would be visiting wineries and meeting winemakers from the various sub-regions of Friuli-Venezia Giulia.  At the conclusion of the lecture I felt that I had had a baseline briefing which prepared me for any eventuality.  But I was wrong.  I was not prepared for the hurricane that was Fulvio Bressan.

Quinta do Vesuvio (Douro, Portugal): Vinification

The terroir and viticulture at Quinta do Vesuvio were detailed in my most recent post.  The activities within the adega will be discussed herein.

As soon as enough for a tractor load has been picked, the grapes are trucked down from the vineyard to the adega.  Grapes are introduced into the winery through a door at the eastern end of the building where they are deposited onto a sorting table-cum-conveyor belt for a second level of selection.  The selected grapes are passed through a destemmer and then a crusher and are then gravity-flowed through a large-diameter hose into one of eight 24-pipe (13,200 liters) granite lagers (open stone tanks).

The objective of port wine fermentation is the rapid extraction of the maximum amount of flavor and color from the skin of the grape prior to attainment of a predetermined brix level.  For Quinta do Vesuvio, it is held that the most effective means of facilitating this goal is through foot-treading of the grapes.  This is a very ancient process which has been supplanted/supplemented by automatic processes in a number of quintas.  Teams of up to 50 people first tread the grapes in a two-hour march called the "cut" and then tread freestyle for an additional two-hours in a music-accompanied session called "liberdade."  Stainless steel radiators submerged in the lagers keep the fermentation temperatures within bounds.

Fermentation is initiated with innoculated must.  The cap is punched down with a wooden device called a macacos in order to keep the juice in contact with the skins.  The entire process of fermentation and maceration continues until a predetermined brix level is attained (about three days) after which fermentation is arrested by the addition of 20% by volume pure grape alcohol.

Quinta do Vesuvio offers a single quinta vintage port to the market .  This limited-production wine is estate-bottled and sold en primeur and will not be produced if conditions fall below certain levels.  The wine that is destined to be estate-bottled is gravity-flowed into large chestnut vats which have been a part of Vesuvio environment since 1827.  All other wine is stored in smaller casks until the next spring when they are shipped down river to the port lodges for storage and assignation.

Quinta do Vesuvio is truly an impressive estate.