Ep. 2541 ITA masterclass "VINI RARI – Beyond the Ordinary" | wine2wine Vinitaly Business Forum

I hope that tasting these 10 wines together may give you an idea of what the Gambora Rosso team is doing with the wine guide. We taste almost everything, 40 more than 40,000 wines. But then when it comes to the end, these are the wines that we really like. Unfortunately, they are producing very tiny quantity, so the treasure hunt is open. Welcome to the Wine to Wine in Italy Business Forum twenty twenty five Chicago edition, where global wine professionals share insights, strategies, and inspiration from this year's conference. Let's dive into today's session and explore the ideas shaping the future of wine. This is a special ITA master class. So there are a lot of wines, and Marco promised that he would be able to finish in forty five minutes. So we better get started. He's the head honcho for, of course, Campero Russo. So he's a super expert, super duper expert Italian wine, and I think you'll see why in a few minutes. This is a special treat because it is called rare wines. They make very few bottles and so those who signed up are going to miss out now because we just gave away their seats. So Marco take it away. Thank you. Thank you for this wonderful presentation. Of course, my name is Marco Sabeligo. I'm been working for this last thirty five years in Gampero Russo, and I'm responsible of the wine guide, Vini d'Italia, alongside with my colleagues, Gianni Fabrizio and Giuseppe Carus, which we are proud to publish since 1988. So next year will be the fortieth anniversary of the guy. This edition, which is, about to hit the shelves, in the next few days, is a thirty ninth edition. Many of you probably know Gampero Rosso. We've been involved in the, you know, describing the food and wine scene of Italy and not only since the mid eighties. And our wine guide is actually translated in English, German, Chinese, Japanese, and we do more than thirty, thirty five events around the world every year. So thanks to Vinitali for this, invitation in Chicago, a city that annually hosts, a Trebicelli event, a presentation of our award winning wine. So we'll be back in few months. And in the meantime, you have an incredible chance of this preview of some extraordinary wines. The title of the tasting is beyond the ordinary. Why is it so? Because it's, punch of wine which is very hard to find. These are the rare and ultra rare wines. And we dedicated some pages of the guide to this wine. We reviewed 2,500 and more wineries. We score more than 25,000 wines every year. We taste more than 40,000 wineries every year. But sometimes we fall into amazing wines, which are produced in ridiculous quantities. That is less than 3,000 bottles. But some of the wines that we are tasting today are are 650, 700 bottles only. We fall in love with this wine, but it doesn't make sense to award these wines and, to give the coveted Trebicheri awards. Nevertheless, we love them. We think they are extraordinary. So we have a selection of 50 wines every year since last edition dedicated to the Vinirari. Today, you and me also, we are lucky enough. We have a chance to taste 10 of these 50, which are absolutely amazing. So we start with the bubbles. We start with the sparklers, and we go to Franciacorta before moving to Trento. Franciacorta is a beautiful terroir around the shores of Izeo Lake. These moronic moronic hills provide a perfect habitat for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir which is then craft into fantastic cuvees of classic meadled sparklers. Many wineries are very famous worldwide like Bella Vista, Caddell Bosco, Guido Berlucchi, and some others are really small wineries family run. And such is the case of San Cristoforo, which belongs to the Dotti family. Bruno and Claudia bought a few hectares of land and a seller in the early nineties and started making their own, Franciacorta. There's a special selection. She's, 1,000 bottles only, which is one number one. The name of this one is, Celeste. It's the name of their daughter, which, luckily enough is, working in the winery. So there's a second generation. A pure Chardonnay from old vines more than 30 years old surrounding the winery, which is a very small one because they have something more than 10 hectares and they produce 90,000 bottles. But these, Celeste, it's amazing. It's a pure Chardonnay from Franciacorta. It It has an elegant nose. Most of this wine is from, '21 vintage with some older wines. It's a non vintage, which has been matured for a long time on the on the lees. And the result, it's, an elegant expression of a classic Franciacorta Chardonnay. So rich on the nose with these toasted notes, vanilla, butter, cream, grilled bread, and Mediterranean herbs with a hint of, citrusy notes. And then on the palate, it's full bodied, rich mineral with a fresh acidic backbone, and it's long lasting. In the end, with these, again, fresh, zesty notes of lemon and lime and, Mediterranean herbs. Creamy, this long maturation on the lees gives us, an elegant carbonation. It's caressing the palate and it's quite, authoritative. Unfortunately, only 1,008 bottles were produced, but it's an elegant, elegant wine. Wine number two, it's, coming from another denomination which has a strong, vocation for the production of classic middle sparklers. So we are on Northeast Of Italy in the Trento province, which is famous for its, Trento DOC. There are some important wineries well known around the world, but, there are some other small scale artisanal wineries. And one of these wineries, Maso Martis, on the outskirts of Trento. The owners, Antonio and, Roberta Stelzer, Antonio Roberta Stelzer, they also manage 11 hectares of vines and, they make some really truly elegant excellent cuvettes of, Trento DOC, mainly focused on Chardonnay like in Franciagorta. Nevertheless, the importance of Pinot Noir and Pinot Menonieur is growing both in Franciagorta and in Trento. And here we have with wine number two, which is called, Mercier Martis. We have this, rose made entirely by Pinot Meunier. It stays five years and a half, almost six years on the lease. It's a very tiny production, 1,800 bottles from, vines which are more than 25 years old. We fell in love with this wine, because it's, one of the best examples of Meunier in Italy. Generally speaking, Meunier in Italy, as in France, is very rarely the sole ingredient of a cuvee. It's always part of a blend. And in this case, it was a fantastic idea, we think, to make a rose with this, excellent mania. Elegant nose, can smell the evolution. You still have red fruits, but the toasty notes, vanilla notes, smokey notes, pitted notes give complexity and elegance to a vibrant nose still led by the fruit and the yeasty notes. Again on the palate, great creaminess, elegance, finesse, long lasting. It's smooth and fruity, and it's, I mean the bubbles are really elegant. There's an elegant carbonation which supports the fruitiness and the acidic backbone. Red currant, black currant, cranberries, are there and, they ensure a long elegant finish to this, cuvee. Elegant wine, only 1,800 bottles. We score the wines, with a classic score of Gampero Rosso, which is one glass for good wine, two glasses for the very good wines, and three glasses for the award winners. But to make a different category, to underline the difference between this selection of rare wines and the classic Trebicheri, we use the 100 scale to rate this wine. So the Celeste de Franciacorta Padossee, so no residual sugar, had, had 94 as a score, and we gave 96, to this Brutus Mercier Martis, Reserve 20 from the Vintage 20. Wine number three, it's an amazing wine produced in 1,200, almost, 1,300 bottles. It comes from, Alto Adige, so the neighboring province to Trento. It's not a real winery. It's called AM project, because Andrea Mose, it's a very well known anologist. He's been responsible some important wineries and cooperative wineries, in the region in Alto Adige, which is, Sotirol. But then he decided to pair to this activity a personal project t