Bubble Head
Christian Bellei aims to take Italian sparklers new places
Italians have a thing with bubbles. A big thing.
France still consumes more sparkling wine, but in my non-scientific observations over 15 years living in Europe, Italians seem to enjoy it more.
Go to any restaurant or bar terrace on a warm evening in northern Italy and watch the endless flow of Prosecco, Franciacorta, other vini spumanti or frizzanti and spritzes. Italians don’t sip daintily at their bubbles or serve them in little flutes. Look at those generous glasses and see the way people seem to simultaneously swirl, drink, talk, laugh and gesticulate.
Some attribute bubble-mania to the Italian temperament. Others say the craze for bollicine was introduced by the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife, Marie Louise, who, in the early 1800s, ruled for more than 30 years as Duchess of Parma.
Whatever the reason, Italians revere the queen of sparklers: Champagne.
“Every two days at home, I finish a bottle of Herbert Beaufort Champagne from Bouzy,” says Christian Bellei, one of Italy’s most Champagne-obsessed producers, who founded Cantina Della Volta in the Lambrusco zone north of Modena.
Bellei, 48, a competitive amateur cyclist with a 125-pound build, is devotedly honing the work started by his father, Giuseppe, a pioneering winemaker who in 1970 adopted Champagne-style techniques (now known as methode traditionnelle, methode classique or, in Italian, metodo classico) for Lambrusco.
Lambrusco wine is made from the Lambrusco family of grape varieties, often associated with ordinary grapey fizz. Yet Bellei is convinced of the noble qualities of the lightest of the group—Lambrusco di Sorbara, which grows in the appellation of the same name.
“The profile of Lambrusco di Sorbara is like Chardonnay. It’s more feminine,” he says. “And I want to show the world what it can be in a sparkling wine.”
All of his Lambruscos are made solely from that variety, and this spring he released his first blanc de noirs version, from the 2012 vintage.
On a chilly spring day, Bellei is working in his hangarlike cellar in Bomporto, where a line of machines is disgorging and corking the 2012 vintage of his delicate metodo classico Lambrusco rose, marked by the bright acidity and mouthwatering salinity common to all his Lambruscos.
Christian was the fourth generation to work at his family's Francesco Bellei winery, which from 1920 made Lambruscos in the region's traditional way—col fondo style, in which the secondary fermentation takes place in bottle but, unlike in Champagne, where the sediment is disgorged before being corked and sold, the lees are left to rest on the bottom. (Bellei still makes one slightly sparkling wine, called Rimosso, in this method.) His father, Giuseppe Bellei, studied enology, but then worked several years for a prestigious Dutch diamond company before returning home to make wine.
“He travelled a lot in the world, and he saw that Champagne was seen as the best wine,” says Bellei. “So when he returned home, he decided to work in the Champagne method.”
At the time, most Lambrusco producers were abandoning secondary fermentation in bottles in favor of large, easier-to-use pressurized steel tanks, or autoclaves, in what is known as the charmat method. But Giuseppe went the opposite direction—traveling to Champagne to learn its classic method.
Christian inherited his father’s love of Champagne. He studied enology and worked with Epernay-based consultants on Bellei wines. In 2004, six years after Giuseppe's death, the family's business partner sold his interest in Francisco Bellei winery to Cavicchioli, a multimillion-bottle producer. Christian worked five years with Cavicchioli, then sold his stake to start a new, smaller-scale brand in 2010 with a group of friends as investors.
Cantina Della Volta now produces just over 13,300 cases annually from Bellei's own grapes and those he purchases—all hand-harvested in small crates. He makes eight metodo classico wines—four from Lambrusco di Sorbara and four from Pinot Noir, Chardonnay or both—all of which age on their lees for two to five years in bottle before disgorgement. (The portfolio also includes a still Chardonnay.)
Wine-loving Italians have taken notice. His sparklers have been given a boost by top Italian restaurants like Florence’s legendary Enoteca Pinchiorri, which serves his Lambrusco rose by the glass.
In the United States, the wines can be hard to find. Bellei, a homebody, rarely promotes his wines outside Italy and has never been to the U.S. But wine lovers who appreciate the wave of quality Lambruscos released in recent years will probably want to taste these.
But why, you ask, does the world even need Lambrusco à la Champagne?
“The classic method makes something that is more elegant, refined and ethereal,” says Bellei, “Maybe the world doesn’t need it, but it’s a dream to use the method on your own grapes.”