Lombardy | Wine region

Lombardy | Wine region | Buy at Gerardo

Almost in the middle of the Alpine arc, Lombardy can be found. This favorable geographical position and the Po River, which crosses it along its entire length, have made the region a hub for trade and industry, with the hydroelectric power of the rivers and Alpine streams being particularly important to the regional economy thanks to their energy. The economic base of Lombardy is industry, but the production of industrially processed agricultural products is also of some importance. Three main wine growing centers have developed in Lombardy: Valtellina (Valtellina) in the north in the province of Sondrio, Oltrepò Pavese in the southwest in the province of Pavia and the Franciacorta area in the hills of the province of Brescia. Valtellina is the wide valley of the Adda River, where the vineyards on the sunlit slopes are fragmented into tiny plots and terraces. Here is one of the few areas outside of Piedmont where the Nebbiolo grape, locally called Chiavennasca, thrives and produces great wines. In the Oltrepò Pavese on the border with Piedmont, a hill area with exceptional production capacity and particular aptitude for fine white wines that form the basis of great Italian sparkling wines. The Franciacorta area, in the southeast of Lake Iseo, gained world fame for the cultivation of Pinot varieties and Chardonnay and the resulting ultra-fine sparkling wines produced by the classic method of bottle fermentation.

Franciacorta is a young Italian wine-growing region in Lombardy. It was not until the 1960s that the first professionally produced sparkling wines were produced. Since then, demand for this spumante, produced in the style of bottle fermentation, grew rapidly and gave the region a boom. The area is bounded to the east by rocky and morainic hills and to the west by the Oglio River, to the north by the shores of Lake Iseo and the last foothills of the Raethian Alps, and to the south by the upper Po Valley. The production area, the subject of the wine production regulations issued by the protection society, is located in whole or in part on the territory of nineteen different municipalities. The name 'Franciacorta' makes one think of beyond the Alps, even if etymologists disagree. The real origin is said to be the expression 'curtes francae', which refers to the small communities of Benedictine monks who, during the Middle Ages, were exempt from taxes in exchange for the reclamation and cultivation of the land entrusted to them. The only thing that is really certain is that the name appeared for the first time in 1277 in the annals of the city of Brescia; it referred to the territory located between the rivers Oglio and Mella, south of Lake Iseo. - Gerardo

"To speak of the Lombard wine par excellence is actually an impossibility. Like probably no other wine region in Italy, Lombardy is so diversified that a uniform picture is extremely difficult to create. A whole galaxy of wine regions opens up, like autonomous dwarf states of vine culture with their own laws and peculiarities'. - Slow Wine