Martinotti-Charmat Method, what makes our Valdobbiadene DOCG unique

The lively bubbles that rise along the glass for minutes on end are the result of work over months and months, sometimes even years.
According to the regulations, a sparkling wine is the product “obtained from the first or second alcoholic fermentation of fresh grapes, of grape must, of wine, characterized at the uncorking of the container by a development of carbon dioxide.”

Conegliano Valdobbiadene Superiore DOCG, like many other quality sparkling wines, derives from a history, experience and evolution of a hundred years that originated in France in the late 1600s in the Champagne region, the progenitor of our bubbles.
This is precisely where the wine and the production method itself, Champenoise or Classic Method, in which the winemaking practices discovered and devised by Dom Pierre Perignon, a monk at a Benedictine monastery, were codified.
In sparkling wines made by this method, the colors tend toward golden, the aromas of white and yellow flowers are particularly intense and the flavors are reminiscent of yeast or bread crust, fresh or dried fruit. These distinguishing traits come from a long, slow aging process in the bottle, intended for types of grapes with a neutral character, whereby the rest on the yeast results in organoleptic releases that will go on to make up the aroma.

Aromatic or semi-aromatic varieties, as in our case for the Glera grape, on the other hand, lend themselves to a short stay on the yeasts that allows the natural scents of the fruit to be respected. Soft colors with straw-yellow shades and greenish reflections, lively and fragrant aromas with hints of freshly picked fruit and flowers, and less structured and fresh flavors belong to Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG, a sparkling wine made with Martinotti-Charmat Method, which over the years has achieved a quality and personality comparable to the world’s best productions.
Until the late 1800s, there was no way other than the Classic Method to be able to sparkle wine. It was thanks to Italian Federico Martinotti that the method of autoclave refermentation was invented, later built and patented by the French Eugene Charmat in 1910.

The process is very similar, the biggest difference between the two methods being the vessel used for the second fermentation by which the bubbles are created: bottles for the Classic Method and autoclaves for the Martinotti-Charmat one.
Procedures that make it possible to elaborate fine bubbles, provided, however, that they start from quality base wines, behind which two essential elements always coexist: man and territory.
Suitable vines located in calcareous and well-draining soils, cool climates and temperatures, high diurnal-nocturnal temperature range, as well as good light exposure, are the main conditions for producing a sparkling wine of value and quality, and which we find throughout the Conegliano Valdobbiadene appellation; these must be complemented by the hard work in the vineyard, knowledge, sensitivity and perception of the winemaker who glimpses and develops the future projection of the base wines derived from the last harvest.

*EC Regulation 479/08 of the EU regulations.