Before I tell you about the wonderful Christmas I spent with my family at Ristorante Tentazioni in Pisogne, I'll jump ahead a little to the day after: Boxing Day! You'll find out why in a few days... Given that I haven't had such a wonderful Christmas since my beloved grandparents were with us, I visited Bellavista on 16 December... and I waited for this occasion to dedicate one of my best days to this winery. Who doesn't know Bellavista? An institution of Franciacorta, with Berlucchi and Ca' del Bosco it has made the history of Franciacorta itself and contributed to its diffusion and prestige thanks to its extraordinary communicative power.
On the same day, Vittorio Moretti, patron of Bellavista, became President of the Consortium of Franciacorta, a post he had held from Maurizio Zanella of Ca' del Bosco for seven years.
But let's go back to how Bellavista inspired our Santo Stefano in Famiglia! The Bellavista winery is named after its hill, from which there is a beautiful view of the valley. From my point of view, it was an excellent marketing choice to keep this name, firstly because it made it easy to find and identify the winery, and secondly because it is an extremely easy and spendable name abroad...
NATURE REINVENTS ITSELF EVERY DAY.
LIFE IS A PERMANENT INVENTION. IT IS ONLY BY LISTENING
SILENCE THAT WE CAN UNDERSTAND THE LAND, THE WATER,
AIR AND LIGHT AS THEY CREATE LIFE.
IT IS ONLY IN THE SILENCE OF OUR VINEYARDS AND CELLARS
THAT WE RENEW THE INSPIRATION FOR OUR WINES,
THE WINES OF BELLAVISTA.
Roberta Surini started the guided tour through the world of Bellavista here, and I must say that this AIS colleague gave me the best experience on a guided tour to date. Despite a small delay on our part that stole some time from the visit, she was good and punctual in everything.
I think there should be a Roberta in every cellar.
First of all, I want to pay my compliments to those who follow Bellavista's communication. Dear colleagues, you have hit the nail on the head: to be a winner today you have to put your face, family, history and humanity behind it. No brand can be called such as long as faces are hidden, no article can be attractive without a story behind it, no toast can be made without being human and with an eye to nature and the environment around us. Bellavista's online and offline communication is the perfect synthesis of all this: the faces of those who represent the company tell the story, the passion and the environment as the company's driving force. We are not talking about wine, we are talking about emotions. In the wake of the commercial that changed the world, Apple's "Think different", where for the entire duration of the commercial not a single product on sale by the company was shown, but only the logo at the end of the video accompanied by the name of the commercial.
As I have always maintained, ever since I started working in online communication, in this age torn apart by obsessive selling, the emotion of the word associated with the face of the person who uttered it wins out. The rest is just noise.
Here's the press... By now everyone wants to feel like the inventor or discoverer of the Marmonier press! What is certain is that this one is really beautiful... However, I would like to read under this article what my friend thinks about it Alceo Totò of La MontinaFor me it is a real landmark in Franciacorta! 😉
We asked ourselves what the substance of our dreams was and we agreed on a single answer: Bellavista is pure avant-garde, it is a non-conformist and enterprising style that today, as then, seeks the essence of its character in the deepest roots of an extraordinary land with unique geological and climatic characteristics.
Francesca Moretti, CEO BELLAVISTA
Roberta explained that Mattia Vezzola is a great lover of the barrel... which he practically keeps until it breaks (and then turns it into a piece of furniture!). The location of the grapes is very important, so much so that the wine is not only divided by vineyard, but also within the same vineyard according to the height and exposure of the land. It therefore happens that two different vineyards with the same characteristics are united in a single barrel, while two areas of the same vineyard but with different morphology are separated. About Moretti I can say that although I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting him, I feel very close to him: it may be because of my past in construction that has given way to a great passion for wine, or because of this attention to detail that results in an innate ability to question oneself! I often have to deal with entrepreneurs and artisans who do not possess the necessary qualities to renew their way of doing business, from the product to the communication, which I like to see people of such depth so adept at doing! Or perhaps they reach certain levels precisely because of this ability... what is certain is that the packaging of ALMA (by the way, Roberta greeted me with a little indiscretion: from next year's vintage it will become Gran Cuvée...) in such an 'aggressive' orange from a communicative point of view was ingenious. Besides... did you know that orange is the colour that stimulates action? In short, brand being equal, if we find them both on the shelf of a wine shop, it is easier to buy a bottle with an orange label than one with a black or blue label. The major e-commerce sites teach us this: have you ever noticed the buy button that is almost always orange?
However, Bellavista's cellar is very well cared for. Also beautiful is the grand piano on which rest the bottles of Meraviglioso, a visionary project of Mattia Vezzola. Meraviglioso is in fact the synthesis of 30 years of Bellavista, or rather the blending of 6 different vintages to create the company's most representative Franciacorta: I can't wait to taste it!
After the guided tour, we headed to the tasting room, which is nothing like the one in Ca' del Boscomore British and refined. I found this one a little underwhelming with the rest of the winery and their product. But here I had the pleasure of meeting Mattia Vezzola, Bellavista's winemaker, for whom I have deep respect and admiration. Mattia Vezzola knows how to do something that many others, in Franciacorta but not only, in the wine world but not only, do not know how to do: that is, he knows how to sign a wine. Regardless of my personal taste, my sensibility and passion for Franciacorta has led me to recognise his wines 'in the dark' and I must say that his are always very recognisable.
"In Bellavista we have always been different,
choosing not the things they like,
but those that remain."Mattia Vezzola, oenologist - Best Italian Oenologist Award 2014
The tasting of Alma and Satén lived up to my expectations: they are 2 wines with such a strong personality that they are very recognisable amidst so many other Franciacorta wines. Mattia Vezzola's style can be felt, he is a bit like a perfumer from another era! I will quote a passage from Alma's technical data sheet, which is special in that it is anything but a technical data sheet, and that is why it is absolutely winning:
Alma Cuvée comes from the skilful blending of around 60 of the 120 harvest selections obtained in the cellar. Approximately 100 selections come from the same harvest and are carefully selected from 107 plots distributed over 10 different communes in Franciacorta ("horizontal blending"). To this vast heritage of olfactory and gustatory variations are then added the aromas and flavours of particular 'reserve wines' from different harvests ('vertical blending'). The "reserve wines" represent our greatest heritage and treasure from which we draw with great respect to define, and ensure that the sensory profile that distinguishes the Bellavista style endures over time. Their precious contribution creates the "constant taste' of Casa Bellavista and, above all, gives Alma Cuvée the texture and persuasive finesse that has always been its hallmark and, with it, our tradition.
In short, Bellavista is an extraordinary winery... with exceptional communication content in a website that does not live up to the product: the web version is difficult to read, cumbersome and disorganised... the mobile version banal and a bit childish. (I know I always end up commenting on websites, but then again, I am still a web designer specialising in web development for wine cellars... it's a kind of professional deformation! 😉 )
But Bellavista's ability to tell its story convinced me enough to choose ALMA for my Christmas toast with my family on 26 December 2015! Francesco, dad, mum, aunt, and I met up at my place at Lake Iseo to celebrate Christmas... and on Boxing Day we went to Alma for an aperitif of Franciacorta delicacies purchased as always from Polastri Maceler, including a very special goat's milk gorgonzola that went wonderfully with Alma, enhancing its freshness and intensity! Then I made the casoncelli bergamaschi (discover my recipe for preparing them here!) and dad gave me a hand to close them and skip them... they were really good!!! Well, this photo was taken by Francesco... I'm almost indecent but it was the only one available 😀 note his '100% real man' T-shirt which is now my second skin! This was followed by an extraordinary 'cotechino' with candied orange, pistachios and mulled wine which will go down in history for having provoked a hysterical attack on my part because it was so big that it wouldn't fit in any pot at home... and it had more than 2 hours of cooking time! Finally, Dad's Sicilian cassata: he should have honorary Palermitan citizenship: I've eaten few in Sicily as good as his!!!
Dad and Mum gave us Eclipse, a beautiful wooden board game made in Italy! Well, it is a 'zero-sum' strategy game with perfect information. Zero-sum games model all those 'adversarial' situations in which the opposition of the two players is total: one player's win coincides exactly with the other's loss, and are defined as zero-sum with perfect information if, and only if, at any given moment, the history of the previous bets is known with certainty. It is very similar to chess, but has fast games (about 15-20 minutes) and reversible plays (the satellite-pedestrians are not 'eaten' and removed from the game board for the duration of the game, but only locked and can be unlocked during the game!). The aim of the game is to chain the opponent's Planet by preventing its movement! Really nice, and it's all made of wood! I hate low-quality plastic games... In short, I liked this game so much that I've already decided to buy another one also by Gigamic: the Reflection Game - Pylos
At lunch, with the delicious casoncelli, I uncorked a wonderful bottle of Tenuta Sant'Antonio's Amarone Riserva Lilium Est, vintage 2004. But that's another story! Read here my resolutions to be (eno)happy in this 2016!
See you soon and a hug,
Chiara
P.S. If you love Franciacorta, I'll link you some unmissable reports:
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