Return to Colognola

"Wine is one of the agreeable and essential ingredients of life." Julia Child

It was more than a decade ago now that my  husband Jim and I had our first introduction to the Colognola winery at a Fancy Food Show in San Francisco.  At this particular show, the Le Marche region hosted several food and wine producers.  It happened this was the first year of production for the Colognola wines, and we were impressed with the quality and potential.  So, we took down contact information, and several months later we found ourselves in Le Marche at Hotel Fortino Napoleonico on the Conero coast meeting with the owner and staff of the Colognola winery over an amazing seven course fish dinner.     This is the night we first met our friend, Gabriele Villani, the current director and winemaker at Colognola and his lovely wife Olimpia.  As the famous line from Casablanca so eloquently captures,  "this was the beginning of a beautiful friendship."  It was also the beginning of our love affair with Le Marche.

Before leaving the cantina, we interrupted Gabri's lunch to say goodbye and pose for a photo.

Today we live about 45 minutes from the winery, but as so often happens life and the winter weather got in the way of things; and thus, it had been many months since our last visit.  I was becoming very anxious to go and taste the new 2014 releases.  So when the fog had finally lifted, the rain had stopped for a while, and the sun made its first appearance in weeks, Jim and I took the leisurely drive through the winding hills of Le Marche toward the hill town of Cingoli to visit Gabriele and the Colognola winery.  From its position on a hill in the little hamlet of Colognola, the winery offers a beautiful vista of vineyards and  hill towns. 

The view from the Colognola winery

Ten years ago the cantina was a small, nondescript  facility, but today, under the aegis of a new owner, the Cantina Colognola occupies a beautiful new building distinguished by the massive bronze horse that greets you before you enter the tasting room.   As luck would have it, on the day of our recent visit, the new sparkling wine was being put in bottles to undergo the second fermentation.

Cantina Colognola, Tenuta Musone, Colognola, Italy

We arrived at the winery and headed down to the cellar where Gabriele was supervising the bottling.  We watched as the machines put the still wine (which had undergone a first fermentation in stainless steel tanks) into the bottles and then capped them with the same type of metal cap used on beer bottles.  As we watched the bottles move along the conveyer belt, we were advised that part of the bottling process is unique to Colognola and proprietary, and Gabriele requested that no photos of this portion of the process be used in this blog.  Sorry!

Bottling the wine for the second fermentation, February, 2014

The filled and capped bottles were then meticulously piled row upon row into large containers to be transported to the special room designated for resting the sparkling wines.  As I watched the assembled crew carefully handle each bottle and place it into the container, transport the container to the room used for aging the sparkling wines, and then reverse engineer the process to lay the bottles to rest, I recalled the first time I had watched this process at Colognola many years before, and I experienced the same awe as that first time.  If you are like me, when you pop the cork on a bottle of sparkling wine made in the classic champagne method, you do not think of the very labor intensive process it undergoes before it is ready to drink.  All you think about is enjoying the wine with friends.   While machines now facilitate the bottling, the making of champagne remains a very time and labor intensive process, and I can now, more than ever, appreciate the fact that the costs reflect this.

Stacked along the wall, the wine will rest here for months, perhaps years before being ready for drinking

Standing around and watching all of that wine being bottled suddenly induced an overwhelming thirst, and I knew it was time to go and taste some wines.  After all, it was after 11:00 am, not too early for an aperitivo in Italy. We headed up the winding staircase from the cellar to the tasting room. 

Over the past several years, Colognola had experimented with both the charmat and the classic champagne method to produce sparkling wines.  This year, however, Colognola was not offering a wine aged solely in stainless steel tanks.  I was somewhat disappointed as their prior year's charmat offering was remarkably good in a light and highly drinkable sort of way.  But, now the winery was focusing on in bottle fermentation, and I was anxious to try the results.  This year there are two sparkling wines available.  First, Musa, or the Muse in English, a wine aged in the bottle for 9 months.  By definition, this wine is not truly a "methodo classico" as it has been aged in the bottle for fewer than 12 months.  Only 2500 bottles of Musa were produced. 

Musa, fermented in the bottle for 9 months

The second wine, Darini, named for the owner, is another new addition to the Colognola wines.  It is a classic champagne method wine aged in the bottle for 24 months.  Only 1000 bottles of Darini have been produced.  Both the Musa and Darini are made from 100% verdicchio grapes grown in the Castelli dei Jesi DOC area located in the Le Marche province of Ancona. 

Darini, a methodo classico fermented in the bottle for 24 months

Matteo, whom we had met on a previous visit, met us in the tasting room where we told him that today we wanted to taste the sparkling wines.  He went off and returned with a bottle of Musa.  First, I have to comment on the label for this wine.  They say you can't judge a book by it's cover; however, I know that I often pick my books by the cover.  Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it does not.  The Musa label is a stand out among wine labels with beautiful art work depicting the muse and her lyre.  I know that if I saw this bottle on a shelf I would be very tempted to try it just based on the label, but would I want to try it a second time after I tasted the wine?  After Matteo poured the wine, I breathed in the nose and was greeted by a very pleasant, somewhat light, fruity and almond scent with perhaps a hint of honey.  One taste, and I was ready for a second.  In the mouth the almond and honey is apparent but lighter than a true methodo classico.  While the taste is soft, the perlage is more robust than a longer aged sparkling  wine.  Yes, I would drink this wine again and again.  As I was looking for a sparkling wine for an upcoming wine tasting dinner, I was very happy to find Musa.  It became one of three sparkling wine offerings that evening and was paired  with chicken crepes with a gruyere cheese sauce.  

Matteo pouring the Musa for tasting

My only disappointment during this visit was when I was told that I could not taste the Darini.  However, as soon as Matteo advised me that they only made 1000 bottles, I understood the dilemma.  So, I bought a bottle to taste at home and waited patiently (well maybe impatiently) for Sunday lunch to try it.  Sunday finally arrived, and Jim popped the cork and poured the Darini into the glasses.  The color, a very light, straw yellow.  The nose, citrus, apple very much the scent of verdicchio which is somewhat unusual for a wine aged this long.  And the taste, young, fresh characterized by the acidity of the verdicchio.   The perlage, while somewhat more refined than the Musa, still dances the tango.  Finally, sated with food and wine, I think it's time for the traditional siesta. 

For  more information about the Colognola winery visit www.tenutamusone.it

Ciao, tutti and salute!  Maree