Enrico Gatti Franciacorta Brut NV

NV Franciacorta Brut DOCG From 100% Chardonnay, this is aged vinified in stainless steel and aged on lees for at least 24 months. The NV best represents the Gatti style; fresh, elegant and complex. There are notes of citrus, almond and bread, the palate balanced and persistent. The total production is 60,000 bottles a year.

In 1975 Enrico Gatti purchased a single hectare in Erbusco, the heart of the Franciacorta region, and made a red wine which he sold in demijohns to local restaurants. At the time Franciacorta was really just getting started as a sparkling wine region and, seeing the potential, Enrico enlisted the support of his children, Lorenzo and Paola, and Paola's husband Enzo Balzarini, and in 1984 they acquired a further sixteen hectares with the aim of producing a great bollicine. Now very much a family operation with a third generation involved, the total production is 100,000 bottles – still tiny by local standards. The vineyards are all planted on the regions classic morainic terrain (an accumulation of boulders, stones, or other debris carried and deposited by a glacier). Farming is organic and exclusively by hand.