MIPTC #32 - Massimago Zurli

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Guess who's baaack? Yes, it's your favorite punny wine newsletter!

I'm so sorry for leaving you hanging for a month like that without warning, but when there's too much on one's plate, one's gotta prioritize - and prioritizing wine over... parenting clearly would have been an interesting choice worthy of deeper analysis (and therapy, most likely)

So yeah, if you don't know already, my wife and I had the joy of welcoming our second born to the world in early February, and our family and hearts now feel fuller than ever. She's SO CUTE it is almost unbearable, and you would understand if you could meet her that 98% of my free time is now spent gazing at her perfection.?

To be perfectly honest, though, putting this on pause for a while was as much of a time thing as a health thing. As we know, newborns come hand in hand with massive sleep deprivation, and I spent the last month feeling so much like a zombie that the last thing I wanted was to dull my mind some more with alcohol. Despite my hedonic and intellectual love for wine, drinking just didn't feel right for the last month - so I just stopped. I definitely saw health benefits over time and would recommend the exercise to anybody looking for a change of pace, as it brought me a fresh perspective on how to treat my body and mind. Now that I'm back into it, I'll probably drink even less than I already did (I had a no-alcohol-during-the-week rule and might make it a just-Saturday-night thing moving forward... but at least that means I'll get enough content for y'all!)

OK - enough with the intro and apologies. Let's talk about what we're having today! God, I missed this.?

Ok, so our treat to kick off the weekend today is a vini rifermentati in bottiglia, which is a loose appellation used in Italy meaning literally "wine refermented in the bottle." This means that while it is not technically a full-fledged sparkling wine, it has just a bit of fizz to it.?

Basically, these are wines that undergo a second fermentation inside the bottle after they have been bottled. How, you ask? It's actually pretty simple. After the wine has been bottled, a small amount of yeast and sugar is added to the bottle. The yeast eats the sugar and produces alcohol and carbon dioxide as byproducts. Because the bottle is sealed, the carbon dioxide can't escape and becomes trapped in the wine, creating those lovely bubbles. Of course, this can get dangerous since the cycle can repeat until the bottle explodes, so this still needs to be carefully monitored to avoid a big fat mess.

And why would we do this? Well, when done right, it can add complexity and depth to an otherwise simple wine. The second fermentation can create new flavours and aromas, and can also give the wine a fizzy, refreshing quality.?Another reason is that it can be a more natural way of making sparkling wine. Instead of adding carbon dioxide (the stuff that makes it bubbly) artificially, as is often done with cheap sparklers, vini rifermentati in bottiglia allow the carbon dioxide to naturally build up in the bottle. Au naturaaaal, basically.

As you can tell, this is really about the process. There is therefore no formal criteria regarding varietals or geography to make Vini rifermentati in bottiglia, which can, in turn, be found all over the world. It really is merry-go-lucky simple stuff meant to be enjoyed profusely in fine company - and especially when the Spring sun comes shining!?

Now, do you want the full tasting notes? If so, you'll have to sign up to my newsletter by clicking here. See you in there, folks!