In a rural corner of northern Italy’s Lombardy region, you don’t have to go far from the highway to see the future of Italian sparkling wine.
Here, in the upper thigh of the Italian boot, about 40 miles south of Milan, if you head up into the sparsely populated foothills of the Apennine Mountains and past the concrete shells of abandoned 20th-century wineries, you’ll reach vineyards that stretch up to 1,500 feet above sea level for as far as the eye can see. Amid dozens of local grape varieties is Italy’s largest concentration of Pinot Noir, known as Pinot Nero, which has been farmed here for centuries.
“To me this is the biggest opportunity in Italy,” says Paolo Ziliani, 60, president of famed Italian sparkling wine producer Guido Berlucchi, based about 50 miles to the northeast in Chardonnay-dominated Franciacorta—an appellation known for its traditional-method bubblies, like those in Champagne. As he looks out over the dramatic, verdant vineyards, he adds, “There is a potential for Pinot Noir in bubbles here that is sky high.”
The area is known as Oltrepò Pavese, and as I wrote five years ago, this centuries-old bastion of Pinot Noir has been struggling to make a comeback.
Large brands from the neighboring Veneto region (known for Prosecco, Soave, Amarone, Valpolicella and more) have come in and made some ripples: Zonin first invested in 1987, followed by others, including Tommasi Estates in 2014.
But the Ziliani family’s purchase in spring 2023 of boutique Oltrepò Pavese bubbles producer Vigne Olcru, along with about 11 acres of prime Pinot Noir vineyards, may prove to be the most significant.
(In the year since the Berlucchi acquisition, Masi of Amarone fame has purchased a Pinot Noir estate in Oltrepò and the pan-Italian cooperative group Cantine Ermes also bought a winery in the region.)
Oltrepò Pinot Noir has been recognized, studied and mapped by Italian wine experts and academics for the last quarter century. Yet the region’s fine wines—still reds and classic-method sparklers (the rosé versions sometimes labeled “Cruasé”)—haven’t reached their market potential.
The area isn’t helped by high production, too much variety among its wines and a lack of a clear identity. A regional cooperative and large-scale producers dominate the scene with confusing ranges of still wines, as well as classic-method and bulk-fermented sparklers. The grape varieties range from Pinot Noir to Barbera, Riesling to Muscat and Cortese to Pinot Grigio.
So why do I think Berlucchi can succeed where others have not?
Because the Zilianis understand high-end, $30 and up, bottle-fermented sparkling wines and are focusing on Oltrepò for ultra-premium quality.
“I want to come and make one thing,” says Ziliani, “and to concentrate on that one thing.”
The Ziliani Family's Plans for Vigne Olcru
From the 2023 harvest, Ziliani produced two base wines, which were bottled last May wines for long secondary fermentations. He expects to release 3,000 cases of a classic-method 2023 vintage rosé in 2027 and about 350 cases of a classic-method, 2023 vintage white sometime in the 2030s.
“Rosé sparkling wine is a niche,” he says,” but we are starting from that niche.”
The two bottlings will probably be released in the extra brut style, but that decision won’t be made for some years. Starting with the 2025 vintage, Ziliani plans to expand into non-vintage bottlings as well.
He and Vigne Olcru winemaker Marco Bertelegni are trying out a range of techniques to learn the effects on their wines, including aging a reserve of base wine in a small porcelain vat and starting the secondary fermentation with must from estate grapes rather than cane sugar.
“We just want to make the high-quality wine we are sure we can make,” Ziliani says. “We don’t know everything yet. A winery is not something you create with an Excel file. You have to keep testing and experimenting.”
And the Zilianis know something about experimentation.
In 1961, Paolo’s enologist father, Franco Ziliani, quietly launched a revolution on the shores of Lake Iseo, when he and his business partner, Count Guido Berlucchi, made a few thousand bottles of bottle-fermented sparkling wine they called Pinot de Franciacorta Méthode Champenoise. Based in the count’s 17th-century Palazzo Lana and its historic cellar, Berlucchi became a symbol of the new Franciacorta appellation, which was launched in 1967.
There and Back Again: From Franciacorta to Oltrepò
Ironically, for more than 20 years beginning in 1976, Ziliani withdrew Berlucchi wines from the Franciacorta appellation while pursuing a dream to make a Northern Italian sparkling wine; he sourced additional grapes from Oltrepò Pavese and from the mountainous Trento area to the northeast.
In 2000, Franco’s three children convinced him to drop that project and return his focus to Franciacorta. There, the family built a new winery and deployed gentler and more exacting vinification methods. In 2003, the family bought the historic Caccia al Piano estate in the coastal Tuscan region of Bolgheri. From there, in the 2019 vintage, the second generation of Zilianis introduced Bolgheri’s first traditional-method sparkling wine, CaP Rosé Metodo Classico VSQ, made from Syrah and Merlot.
Today, three years after Franco’s passing, Paolo and his older siblings, Arturo and Cristina, are running Berlucchi. With an annual production of more than 300,000 cases, it’s the largest winery in Franciacorta, which has grown into Italy’s most prestigious appellation for high-end bubbly. Berlucchi farms about 400 acres of organic vineyards in Franciacorta and sources grapes from another 1,000 acres.
The siblings’ move into Oltrepò continues their father’s quest for quality Pinot Noir in the area’s cool, dry, higher-altitude vineyards. The area serves as a complement to Franciacorta, which is planted mostly to Chardonnay and where producers often struggle to cultivate mature, balanced Pinot Noir.
“It’s a risky grape in Franciacorta. In some years you don’t have the quality that Pinot Noir deserves,” says Ziliani. “Here [in Oltrepò], Pinot Noir is practically native. There is a big volume of it, which also means you can do a [severe] selection of it.”
Berlucchi CEO and longtime winemaker Arturo Ziliani adds that the move to Oltrepò was also fueled by a desire to expand their production and experience in sparkling wine. Their goal? “To become the Italian group specialized in the classic method.”
