La Scolca

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Entrance of the La Scolca winery, 2019

La Scolca is a winery in the Italian wine region of Piedmont that is over a hundred years old . It is considered the first, the grape Cortese varietal developed has and markets. It is therefore pioneering for the classification of these wines and is considered the most famous in the region. The resulting Cortese di Gavi is one of the most popular white wines in Italy. La Scolca produces both still and sparkling wines . Among the farms in this region, La Scolca is the oldest and is considered the most modern.

history

The entrepreneur and importer of toys Giambattista Parodi bought the Tenuta in the hills of Rovereto in 1919 with no intention of cultivating wine there. It was only his son Alfredo who began growing Cortese grapes in addition to wheat, but initially only for his own needs. The striking tower of Tenuta La Scolca, which can be seen from afar over the slightly hilly land, also dates from this time. It is reminiscent of the old place name of the district of Sfurca , which means something like wide view , because the farmhouse once standing there also served as a military lookout post . Alfredo's daughter married Vittorio Soldati, the grandfather of the current owner Chiara Soldati, so that the winery is now in the fifth generation. In retrospect, the choice of this name for a winery in which white grape varieties were cultivated in a region with exclusively blue grapes for the first time can be described as visionary.

It was only after the Second World War that the manor under Vittorio Soldati - the husband of Giambattista's granddaughter and cousin of Mario Soldati - became the lead company for the Gavi classification. In the early 1950s, Italian wine production was paralyzed. Until the 1980s, mostly cheap and poorly made wines were produced. Most recently, they were almost exclusively delivered to large corporations such as Cinzano and Martini & Rossi , who made their Prosecchi from them. This was a profitable business for the region's winemakers.

In addition to being able to produce good wine, Vittorio was also an excellent seller. He positioned his wines in the showcases of the best restaurants, first in Turin , then in Milan , and finally in Rome . At the beginning of the 1970s, before the DOC classification , Soldatis Gavi achieved the status of a cult wine. In the end, the wine was served as one of two white wines on the Orient Express and at the annual opening of the Scala season. The list of well-known customers is long.

Another decisive quality improvement also comes from Vittorio. He made sure that the hectare yields were reduced to around half by lower density of vines, consistent pruning and “green harvest”. If the yield per hectare in the Gavi was 65–70 hl / ha , it could cause it to be reduced by law to 45–50 hl / ha. He even works with only 35 hl / ha. When redesigning his cellar rooms, he paid close attention to production processes that protect the white wine: the grape musts largely follow gravity and do not have to be pumped unnecessarily .

After the market for Cortese grapes for sparkling wine production collapsed in the early 1960s and prices continued to fall, most winemakers switched to red varieties. Vittorio Soldati, however, retained the characteristic today Cortese grape and professionalized its on - and expanding. Right from the start, the light wine grapes were grown in a region in which red had been grown almost exclusively for over thirty years. In many ways, Soldati's work can be viewed as a pioneering act, as part of the country first had to be gradually made arable by clearing forests. Other areas were previously covered with wheat.

In 1969 a Gavi dei Gavi was launched for the first time , which already bore the handwriting of Vittorios' son Giorgio. When the latter joined his parents' business in 1970 after studying viticulture, he later said that the wines were “garage wines. Forty thousand bottles. Today we have reached six hundred thousand and we cannot satisfy the requests. And that's fine, we are a family and will remain so. "Since 1983, there is the d'Antan, a sparkling wine that first ten years in stainless steel tanks on yeast stored before a bottle fermentation follows, also known as méthode champenoise referred becomes. This vintage sparkling wine is only produced in particularly good years. The last vintage currently available (2019) is 2007.

It was also Giorgio Soldati who founded the Tutela del Gavi consortium in 1993 , which has since taken care of the protection and marketing of the Gavi-DOC and which now includes 180 wineries and producers with 5,000 employees. Today the company is in the fifth generation under the management of Chiara Soldati. Chiara's parents, Giorgio and Luisa, were still working for the company at the 100th anniversary celebration. Relevant sources skip a generation with the famous writer, screenwriter and director Mario Soldati (1906–1999). The property had probably been used for wine growing for much longer.

Gavi classification

Villa Scolca

White Cortese di Gavi wines received DOC in 1974 and DOCG in 1998 . They are only allowed to be grown in ten municipalities in the province of Alessandria and are subject to strict quality regulations. The grades Fermo , Frizzante , Spumante , Riserva and Riserva Spumante Metodo Classico are permitted . The cultivation area covers 1500 hectares , which result in an average annual production of 12 million bottles. The great Johnson finds that, overall, Gavi wines "thrive very well", but "the taste is often mutilated by fermentation that is too cool".

geography

The municipality of Gavi is located in the border area between Piedmont and Liguria . The winery is located northwest of Gavi in ​​the Rovereto fraction , about a quarter of the route in the direction of Novi Ligure on the SP 159 just before the municipal boundary to Tassarolo on the right in the middle of its own vineyards, which are lined with forest. The altitude of the 60 hectare vineyards is given as 300 to 350 meters.

Wines

The winemaking is mainly from a long mash marked -Standzeit. According to Giorgio, the sediments that settle after the pressing are the most important components that can later benefit the wine. The mash is carefully aerated with oxygen in order to largely prevent any reduction . Another important quality component is avoiding mixing different crops in the cellar. “We know which terroir is in which tank and what it will be used for later,” says Chiara Soldati. The most important wines are the world-famous classic from the Gavi Etichetta Nera , Villa Scolca as the second oldest wine created in the 1950s and the Gavi dei Gavi, first bottled in 1966 as a model for the DOC classification that has existed since 1974. This wine still has an exemplary character for wines from this growing region, especially in terms of the remarkable intensity and variety of aromas. This "is probably the most famous Gavi in ​​the world." Compared to all other wines produced in this wine region, it has a certain aging potential .

There are a total of twelve different wines in the range, four of which are white wines and six are sparkling wines.

reviews

  •  The great Johnson rates it with two stars, so at least good quality.

Web links

Commons : La Scolca  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Gavi Spumante Rugrè Gavi Spumante . Lazzarottovini (Italian)
  2. ↑ Tenuta La Scolca: Gavi dei Gavi - Il viandante bevitore . Il Viandante bevitore, November 9, 2009
  3. ↑ D'in su la vetta della torre antica: 'La Scolca' . La stanza del vino , November 1st, 2011.
  4. ^ Gianni Dal Maso: I 100 anni de La Scolca . Suntime Magazine, Rome, January 18, 2019 (Italian).
  5. ^ Gavi DOCG . Wein-Plus wine guide online at Web.archive.org
  6. ↑ a b торжество Гави , Simple wine news (russ.)
  7. ↑ Mario Soldati : Soldati Gavi. Bet on white. Simplewine.ru , 1974 (Russian)
  8. ↑ a b Alessandra Piubello: Guardare lontano. È il significato del toponimo "Sfurca", che origina La Scolca. Lascolca.net, pages 26–29 (Italian)
  9. ↑ La Scolca: un vitigno rinato, un secolo di vita e la sfida della modernità. In: repubblica.it. July 19, 2019, accessed January 14, 2020 (Italian).
  10. ↑ Il Consorzio Tutela del Gavi: passione, impegno, qualità. In: consorziogavi.com. Retrieved January 14, 2020 (Italian).
  11. ^ Marco Trabucco: La Scolca è Gavi da cinque generazioni (e 95 vendemmie) . For the 95th birthday of La Scolca, La Repubblica , August 5, 2014 (ital.)
  12. ^ Mauro Giacomo Bertolli: Gavi, il bianco del Piemonte più noto all'estero che in Italia . on Il sole 24 ore , May 4, 2016
  13. ↑ a b The great Johnson . 19th edition 2009. Gräfe and Unzer , ISBN 978-3-8338-1621-5
  14. ↑ Daniele Cernilli : The Ultimate Italian Wine Guide 2019 , Doctor Wine, Rome October 2018, page 342
  15. ↑ Wine description on the manufacturer's website
  16. ^ Luigi Bellucci: A Gavi per una verticale a La Scolca . tigulliovino.it, May 22, 2007
  17. ↑ La Scolca: Gavi dei Gavi Etichetta Nera Gavi DOCG on Edelrausch.de

Coordinates: 44 ° 42 ′ 31 ″  N , 8 ° 46 ′ 55 ″  E