Franciacorta, icon of Italian sparkling wine, is the one to start the harvest

While in the tourist resorts of Italy people are toasting to summertime, with bubbles among the protagonists in the glass, it is right from one of the hearts of Italian sparkling wine production that starts the first real Italian harvest 2021, at a territorial level. That is Franciacorta, icon of the classic method sparkling wine production of Italy, where “harvesting started from the vineyards of the southern side of Monte Orfano, where Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc are always harvested earlier than in the more central areas, thanks to the particular microclimate that distinguishes them”.
The harvest was slightly delayed by one week as compared to 2020, and the 121 wineries of the Franciacorta Consortium led by Silvano Brescianini will bring to the cellar a vintage which is not easy, especially for a campaign started uphill “with a small frost in April and ended with some difficulties with a hailstorm at the end of July” explains the vice-president of the Franciacorta Consortium Francesco Franzini, who underlines as “fortunately the quality of the grapes was not compromised by these events and we expect a harvest, although less rich from a quantitative point of view than the previous year, very satisfactory from a qualitative point of view”.
Waiting, as always, for the glass test in at least 18 months (minimum aging time for “basic” Franciacorta, 24 months for satèn and rosé, 30 months for vintage and 60 months for riserva), in order to understand how the bubbles of Franciacorta 2021, the year of the restart, will really be.