2020 Tenuta Foresto La Comédie
VARIETAL: Barbera
REGION: Piemonte, IT
VITICULTURE: Organic
WINEMAKER: Francesco Pozzobon
It is produced from 100% Barbera grapes that come from young vineyards (15 years), found on sand and tufa soil. The grapes are partially de-stemmed and placed in 50 hl cement tanks where they remain for less than 24 hours. It is immediately drawn off, pressed and then transferred to a 35hl stainless steel tank. Here it carries out part of the spontaneous fermentation in contact with the skins, without temperature control. 2-3 punch downs per day are carried out as needed. A small part of the must is preserved before fermentation, it will be used to restart the fermentation inside the bottle. The wine is bottled in the spring in a waning moon and aged 6 months in bottle. No clarification and filtration or addition of sulfur dioxide.
Tenuta Foresto is located in the province of Asti. More precisely in Nizza Monferrato, which is the centre of the Barbera DOCG ‘Nizza’ and heart of the UNESCO site of Piedmont. In this area, Barbera is the leading grape variety grown thanks to the micro climate conditions and soil composition, favourable for its ripening. The estate counts 8 hectares of land, where around 6 of them are planted with vines. Led by Francesco Pozzobon, originally from Veneto, found his dream farm and now produces genuine wines that represent not only the different varietals and ‘terroirs’ but above all the powerful imprint of nature.
He works primarily with Barbera, Cortese, Moscato, and Chardonnay. All of which are hand picked and farmed organically and following the Fukuoka method. Vines vary from ten to seventy years old, expose is mostly south to south-west, with tufa (a variety of limestone) throughout, with some clay and chalk (limestone again) and ‘terra rossa’ (Italian for ‘red soil) mixed in.
They ferment and age most of their wine in concrete vats and neutral oak barrels. Francesco in the cellar tries to intervene as little as possible, with spontaneous fermentation and indigenous yeasts only, maceration on the skins, no filtration before bottling and without the addition of sulphites at any stage.