Berlucchi, Lombardia

Guido Berlucchi was a gentleman farmer in Borgonato, in the province of Brescia, who produced during the 1950s a still white wine. The wine had a stability problem, since it tended to throw a haze after bottling, and he needed a professional winemaker to clear up the problem and thus improve the wine.

Thus the 1954 meeting with Franco Ziliani, a young man of the area full of enthusiasm and dreams. Ziliani fixed the problem, then went on to talk with Guido Berlucchi about his dream, producing, in Franciacorta, a sparkling wine that would hold its own against Champagne. In the late 1950s, in spite of a host of start-up difficulties due to a lack of equipment, materials, and experience, the foundations where laid for an operation that would bring into reality Franco Ziliani’s dreams.

In 1961 the first 3,000 bottles of sparkling wine were produced, using the classic method; these finally exhibited the qualities for which Ziliani was striving. The chosen few who were able to taste it were struck by the quality and elegance of that wine.

Ziliani christened it ‘Pinot di Franciacorta,” with remarkable farsightedness, for this was the first time that Franciacorta, the geographical name of the area, appeared on a wine label. The bottles soon reached the 20,000 mark, then 100,000, then many hundreds of thousands. The rest is recent history, inasmuch as Italian wine lovers have shown an ever greater appreciation for the qualities of Berlucchi sparkling wines, which have become the symbol of excellence of Italian spumanti and the benchmark for all classic-method sparkling wine producers in Italy.