Description
Le Spinee, Veneto Bianco Frizzante “Pet Nat”
“Prosecco country” spreads across northeast Veneto and spills over into neighboring Friuli. Although the Dolomites loom in the near distance, vineyards in towns such as Valdobiaddene and Conegliano—both in the province of Treviso—experience a somewhat warmer, Marine-influenced climate than Champagne. Soils are an amalgam of clay, limestone, marine sandstone, and glacial moraine.
Le Spinee is an 18-hectare, polycultural farm run by the Durante family. They employ Certified Organic and Biodynamic cultivation methods in their vineyards outside Treviso, right where Veneto gives way to Friuli-Venezia Giulia. This multi-generational family operation is headquartered on the site of an abandoned monastery, which had become overgrown with prickly bushes, prompting the Durantes to name it with an old word for “spiny” (spinee).
This wine is a traditional style of dry, lightly sparkling (frizzante) wine made in the ancestral method (metodo antico in Italian; pétillant naturel in French), wherein an unfinished wine completes its fermentation in the bottle, leaving behind both effervescence and yeast sediment. In addition to Glera (a.k.a. Prosecco), it incorporates some Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio as well. It is unfiltered, and thus has a cloudy appearance when poured.
Pale straw gold with yellow and green highlights, with aromas of underripe white peach, yellow apple, white flowers, wet stones, and rising bread dough. For those who’ve tried Prosecco before, this will likely be the driest, most mineral example you’ve encountered, with a pronounced yeasty quality due to the yeast sediment in the bottle. The effervescence is much gentler than that of a spumante (fully sparkling) style, thus the frizzante indication.
