Trento DOC
Grape Pinot Bianco

2011 (12.5%)
Disgorged: March 2016
Full, fresh floral fruit, lemon and fresh herb, biscuit and buttered toast. An immense, mineral, taut wine, delicious, a revelation.
Production 1180 bottles

Pinot Bianco is hardly a household name when it comes to sparkling wines. It was the base variety for the original Franciacorta made by Berlucchi and whilst Chardonnay and Pinot Noir may have overrun it, it is still authorised in Champagne where it is known as Blanc Vrai - and it remains popular in Alsace.
Zeni’s Dosaggio Zero is something entirely different, an homage to the remarkable achievement of Pinot Bianco in the hills above Grumo. It is unlike any ‘Dosaggio Zero’ I have tasted, usually a zero dosage or pas dose is lean, almost hard and drunk by those who are happy to sacrifice flavour for a few less calories. Not so here, the base wine is from the Maso Nero vineyard, it is four hundred and fifty metres above sea level and the vines are planted every eighty centimetres using a Guyot system. The Pinot Bianco is grafted onto Teleki rootstocks, the choice and density causes the ideal amount of ‘stress’ on each vine.
The vines are hand-picked, a little before the grapes that make Sortí. Fermentation is in small oak barrels, without temperature control. The wine is then aged in barrique for eight months before bottling. The wine remains in bottle for a further two years where it completes the secondary fermentation. After disgorgement the wine is held until judged as being in perfect condition and ready to be released, each bottle is individually numbered.