The Proseccos of Cinzia Canzia and Pier Francesca Bonicelli are among the more interesting in the denomination, and year after year they grow in precsision and personality.Le Vigne di Alice in Carpesica -- SUSTAINABLE!
Women are found at the helm here: Cinzia Canzian and Pier Francesca Bonicelli: both in a life long dream of bottling a boutique Prosecco that's all their own. Cinzia tacked 15 years at her husband's famous winery Bellenda, and at the official Prosecco Consortium of Treviso. The later experience allowed her the rare privilege of years of tasting the range of perlage (an odd sounding but useful word) offered by the area's producers. Francesca studied enology at Italy's oldest school of enology in nearby Conegliano; she has a vast experience as a local enologist, which is quite different from being an expert Italian enologist. She knows her local grapes and how to vinify and bubble them. Alice (Cinzia's grandmother's name) has in four short years become a rising star, with an elegant and pure Extra Dry Prosecco, as well as, a serious Brut that's a leader in its category (and, in a battle of the sexes, took the top award form Cinzia's husband last year).
I've know them for four year now, and it didn't take me long to understand that these women are joyful, caring, and with a passion for life and fine wine. Yet, at the same time, they are utterly serious, precise and determined about producing an amazing Prosecco. Making any sparkling wine requires a degree of technical know how and follow through; these women are to be counted on and trusted, from longer fermentations and proper use of Charmat tanks (where the secondary fermentation takes place) to vineyard care, and rootstock and clone selection. Soon, they will be Certified Organic, but what's important is that they are a small winery, working in small batches with exceeding precision. I thought you just dump grapes in the Charmat and push the BUBBLES NOW button.
Not so.They also use 100% Prosecco grape (now called Glera with the change over to DOCG). Speaking of quality, I am now going to step onto my Squawk Box: You cannot compare a small producer of Prosecco with a mega-producer! Squawk! If you are making millions of bottles of bubbles, you can't control the quality, as you would if you were making thousand of bottles (hundred of bottles, in my experience, often yield serviceable but not inspiring Prosecco). Recently, we saw the area, and name, Prosecco, become more protected with a move to DOCG.
Soon -thank goodness! -- we will not see cheap bubbles calling themselves Prosecco without being 100% Glera or Prosecco grape -- and -- from the area of Conegliano or Valdobbiadene. So, the whole copyrighted name, grape and area of Prosecco take an important step to an identifiable authenticity you can taste. Bye-bye! IGT Prosecco; it wasn't fun. (Stepping down from Squawk Box now.)
How are Alice wines? Elegant, dry, classy and highly drinkable. Confusingly enough, Brut is drier than Extra Dry in Prosecco lingo. Yet, at Alice, even the Extra Dry leans toward a drier style, giving a mix of green apple acidity with that pear fruit). The two non-DOCG sparklers are equally wonderful: the Osè is a Rosato from Prosecco and native Marzemino and a favorite Italian sparkling rosè of mine. For the nostalgic types, the Tajad is the ancient way of making Prosecco, by using a field blend of local native grapes. It's a geeky Prosecco for those hunting for lost native grapes; it's also completely different from the DOCG wines.
As the motto of Alice encourages: Life is a Bubble, meaning, inter alia, that these wines have a bevy of uses, all of which, however, provide cause for celebration: from Weddings, Sunday brunches, Aperitivo at the bar, or impromptu-get togethers with friends at home.
