Contratto
Yesterday was our first full day in Alba. We went on a tour of Contratto winery. Contratto was highly recommended by James (who you will meet later). Contratto is one of the first wineries to make sparkling wine in Italy.
Our guide Gulia, has been with Contratto for 4 1/2 years and was great. Contratto produces 180,000 bottles of sparkling wine a year. Primarily from Chardoney and Pinot Noir. Their Chardoney Blanc de Blanc is very nice as is their White Pinot. I was not as fond of the Chardoney - Pinot blend.
Their cellars are dug into a mountain and go on forever. I saw vintages as old as 2011.
The process of making the wines sparkling, requires adding a small amount of yeast and sugar. This is the only case where they are allowed to add sugar to wine. During this stage the bottles are capped with beer bottle type caps. They ferment to a pressure of 6 atmospheres. When removing the sediment plugs half of that is lost leaving 3 atmospheres of pressure in the finished bottle. After the fermentation, the bottles are hand shaken to loosen the sediment and placed neck down in racks. They turn the bottles 1/8 turn each day for two to three weeks to collect the sediment in the neck. They paint a small dot on the bottom of each bottle to keep track of the turning. They have 18,000 bottles in these racks at a time and one person turns all of the bottles in an hour a day.
The old method of opening the bottle uside down then quickly flipping the bottle upright before losing too much wine, has been replace by a machine where the bottle necks are frozen. The bottles are opened upright using the pressure to pop out the sediment plugs. Bottles are then sealed with corks and wire cages. And sent to age.
After the cellar tour we tasted their four sparkling wines plus everything else Gulia could find that was open. By the time we were finished, we were set to meet Gulia on Tuesday for a tour of one of her friends wineries.
After the tour we adjourned to our favorite restaurant for dinner. That is worthy of it’s own post.
Until then, chaio