Sorgente
Friuli-Venezia Giulia - italy
story…
Sorgente is a special label that was created out of the idea and desire for Ted Vance of The Source Imports and a particular, but undisclosed estate in Friuli to work together. The focus was to only work with their Prosecco production, which was never intended to be sold alongside their traditional still wines that are labeled under the estate name. The estate owns a six hectare parcel of Glera vines in Friuli-Venezia Giulia located about a stones throw from the Veneto border and not far from a natural spring at the nascita (birth) of the Livenza River. Ted had already chosen the name Sorgente as the label for this special project, Sorgente in Italian is “Source”. He didn’t know at the time of choosing that name that there was also a natural spring near by which is a source of water for the Livenza River; giving the name an even stronger tie to the land from where the wine comes.
farming & Philosophy…
The farming practices here fall under what they consider to be sustainable farming, although this term is a bit to broad and perhaps not a fair definition. They have completely removed the use of any herbicides or pesticides on the property and the only treatments they do apply are copper & sulfur, both of which are acceptable and common in organic and biodynamically farmed vineyards. The vineyard work is all managed by hand, including harvest which is really quite rare in Prosecco DOC. Only when the soil needs tilled do they employ any machinery in the vineyards.
Although there farming and vineyard work shows a great deal of dedication to quality for region more widely known for inexpensive bulk sparklers, their production practices really hammer home how seriously they take their Prosecco production. All of the fruit is fully destemmed before going through three press cycles. The first press and free run juice, which the producer says is full of impurities from the skins is set aside and sold off in bulk, stating the impurities would mask their vision for their Prosecco. The second pressing, which is extremely gentle around a maximum of 0.4 bars. For a reference most whole cluster whites are pressed at 2.0 bars. The final pressing which is any juice pressed off at over 0.4 bars is also set aside to be sold off in bulk. Only the second, gentlest pressing which amounts to only 40% of their production is stored in stainless steel tanks where it gets a small dose of SO2 before allowing to settle. Once settled it is transferred to a new tank for primary fermentation on native yeasts for about 12 days. This base wine is then transferred to tanks where it is kept until they are ready to put it through secondary fermentation for Prosecco production.
When needed the base wine is put in an autoclave (pressurized tank) and gets a small amount of sugar and selected neutral yeast to kick start secondary fermentation. This neutral yeast is formulated to create a quick ferment of the sugar to to alcohol and CO2 to create the bubbles; the primary fermentation on native yeasts is responsible for all the aromatic and flavor components in the wine. Once the wine reaches the desired pressure and residual sugar the fermentation is stopped by bringing the tank down in temperature. The wine is kept in contact with the lees for around 60 days and receives weekly bâtonnage to help develop texture and also helps to refine the bubbles in the wine. The finished wines never see anymore than 12oppm of SO2 total.
Vineyards…
The vineyard parcel is ideally located between the Alps, roughly ten miles north, and the Adriatic which is about 20 miles to the south east. This idealyc location creates large diurnal temperature swings from night and day that leads to great retention of acidity and development of complex phenolics in the grapes. The soil is a combination of limestone and clay, this mixture of soils endows the grapes with a great sense of minerality as well as longer growing season which helps to build complexity and depth to the end wines. The vines range from 8-15 years old.
