Franciacorta between discipline towards consortium rules and culture in the knowledge of territory

Discipline, meant as respect of consortium rules, founding element of a model of development which has ensured quality uniformity, reputation, and value to Franciacorta brand with a severe normative system, but strongly shared, capable of uniting big and small producers demonstrating that the identity of a territory is built on unanimity, and thanks to which, applied with coherence from vineyard to winery, Franciacorta was able to affirm as a point of reference in international sparkling wine panorama. And, culture meant as collective awareness, that of a territory growing in the knowledge of itself, also in the generational passage which is underway: today, a third of producers has less than twenty years of history at their back, and they are entrusted with the task to reinterpret the tradition with a growing attention to climate change looking for varieties, and a more blended reading of different altitude and geological expressions of Franciacorta. Here, the “coordinates” of the evolution of Franciacorta, according to the “trio” of Italian Masters of Wine Gabriele Gorelli, Andrea Lonardi, and Pietro Russo, outlined, in the last days. At Erbusco, in the thirty-five years of Consorzio Franciacorta, between trend analyses in the confrontation with producers, and scientific wine tastings dedicated to Satèn, Rosé, and Riserve.
An anniversary, that of the consortium of prestigious Italian Metodo Classico, officially arisen in 1990, celebrated with the outlook towards future as president Silvano Brescianini explained (in an interview to WineNews), aware of the fact that every achievement is a phase of a wider path which, in time, consolidated not only a productive style, but a real model of collective growth (as figures by Nomisma Wine Monitor, analyzed by Denis Pantini, explain), and capable of conjugating rigorous rules, and cultural tension towards innovation (as outlined by the confrontation between the experts united in Franciacorta, including Master of Wine Essi Avellan, among the most authoritative ones when talking about Champagne, and sparkling wines that we interviewed).
In this context, a central role was reserved to Satèn, a real identity heritage of Franciacorta, the only style protected at a European level belonging exclusively to this territory. The most “desirable” interpretation of Franciacorta, Satèn became a symbol of recognizability, and a field of stylistic experimentation. Today, every producer interprets it according to his/her sensitiveness: there is who aims to elegance given by wood, who works on the components of freshness basing on dosage, who valorizes the role of riserva wines. Exactly this plurality of voices became one of the central themes of the reflection. There is space for a major stylistic unanimity, capable of further reinforcing the collective identity of Satèn without renouncing to the expressive freedom of single wineries. It is the symbol of a Franciacorta balancing between rule and interpretation, between method and intuition.
The path tracked in the first 35 years is solid, but the challenges of the next decades will need the same spirit of vision: productive strictness, capacity of adaptation, and, mainly that widespread culture transforming a great wine into a community heritage.