The Metodo Classico

In the silence and dim light of our ageing cellar the time of bottle refining of the sparkling wines Metodo classico Colonnara flows leisurely.
A time that can last over 60 months, rare, lonely, only interrupted by the wise movements of the cellarhands.

In the early eighties, anticipating the current trends in the wine world by a few decades, among the first we realized the potential of Verdicchio's single varietal sparkling wine, bringing this wine to an unprecedented level of perfection. Thanks to the deep knowledge of the characteristics of our vineyards and our wines and the far-sighted intervention of some reference figures, such as the President Luigi Ghislieri  e l'enologo Carlo Pigini Campanari who have marked the history of Colonnara.

Our Ubaldo Rosi, the first Metodo Classico sparkling wine awarded in the Marche, has been ranked among the hundred best sparklings in the world.

The Harvest: we start with a particular early harvest, choosing the most mature grapes.

 

The cuvée: first fermentation of the grapes in an open tank to obtain the base wine for the sparkling (at 11% vol). We add the liquer de tirage, yeasts and sugars that will ferment the sparkling wine. The wine is placed in bottles with a particular crown cap.

The fermentation: this phase, which lasts from 30 to 60 months, is the moment of second fermentation in the bottle of wine which slowly becomes a sparkling wine. The hold of the bottles is made in the traditional French style, sur lattes, in a horizontal position. In this period the yeasts are deposited on the belly of the bottle while the sugars slowly turn into alcohol. The long rest on the yeasts gives unique characteristics of complexity and pleasantness to the sparkling wine, refining the bubble with a very fine and persistent grain that "tickles" the palate.

The remuage: we transfer the bottles on special wooden trestles (pupitres) to keep them in an inclined position and make sure that the yeasts slowly concentrate in the neck of the bottle, in particular in the crown cap's bidule. This operation is carried out by hand by our cellarhands, bottle by bottle, every other day for about two months.

Disgorgement à la glace: with a process of partial and fast freezing of the bottle neck, the yeasts are removed from the cork, leaving the sparkling wine clear inside the bottle.

The liqueur d’expedition: before closing the bottle with the cork, we add the so-called "liquore di dosaggio", the secret recipe of every winemaker, which has the function of re-giving sugars inside the bottle.

liqueur de expedition

Caging: the sparkling wine is now ready to be put on the market and the iron cage is added.