1997 Bellavista Franciacorta Gran Cuvee Brut

Bellavista is Italy’s most admired producer of sparkling wines made in the méthode champenoise. The estate was founded in 1984 by Vittorio Moretti, who was a highly successful construction industry entrepreneur before dipping his toe into wine production. He now owns several wine estates, and Bellavista is today a nearly 500-acre estate with a sleek, modern tasting room and cellars comparable to the modernist wine estates of northern California. Moretti was the first of what is now a larger community of wealthy industrialists who’ve opened wineries in the Franciacorta DOCG, just northeast of Milan. Bellavista started the trend in Franciacorta of producing sparkling wine using traditional Champagne methods, in which the secondary fermentation occurs in the bottle, among other practices. Gambero Rosso has often awarded Bellavista’s wines 3 glasses, and the winery itself has the distinction of being one of Gambero Rosso’s Two Star producers, meaning the winery has produced a large number of 3 glass wines. Gambero Rosso noted in 2016 that “the Bellavista style, developed over the years with the aid of oenologist Mattia Vezzola, is an unmistakable blend of elegance and complexity.”

Lombardy is in the north, just under Switzerland, and it is home to Milan and Italy’s major business centers. Lombardy (Lombardia, in Italian) is also the center for what some consider Italy’s best sparkling wines. Though the Veneto has long been known for its prosecco, the Franciacorta DOCG, one of two DOCGs in Lombardy, is famous for its sturdier, elegant, Champagne-style sparkling wines, which are made by metodo classico, the traditional French Champagne-making process requiring two separate fermentations, among other steps. The sparkling wine industry here is relatively young, having started only in the 1960s. But money for Lombardy wineries has come from wealthy regional industrialists, and it has grown quickly. There are nearly 70,000 vineyard acres in Lombardy and it ranks eleventh in terms of production among Italy’s wine regions. There are thirteen DOCs making red and white wines. Chardonnay is the dominant white grape and it is used in many sparkling wines. Red wines are made from Barbera, Bonarda, Lambrusco and Chiavennasca, which is a regional variation of Nebbiolo. Bellavista in Franciacorta is the most famous producer in Lombardy, although the DOC Oltrepo Pavese is also considered to have an excellent terroir. Valtellina, which has a DOCG and DOC, in the far north makes Chiavennasca, which is Nebbiolo.