Mosnel Franciacorta Brut – their landmark 44th Edition

Mosnel Franciacorta Brut – their landmark 44th Edition

In 2016, it was an honour to be one of the guests at Mosnel’s 180th birthday celebrations. While there, a unique tasting of their flagship Franciacorta Extra Brut, called EBB, was special. You can read all about Mosnel and that superb sparkling wine here. A return to Mosnel via these pages was long overdue. It’s worth repeating that the 42-hectare estate has been certified organic since 2014. Giulio and Lucia Barzanò manage it, representing the fifth generation of the family. This time around, their featured wine is Mosnel Franciacorta Brut in their new 44th Edition. This cuvée was the family’s first ever release of Franciacorta, in 1979. This edition is a landmark because it’s their first cuvée to include the Erbamat grape variety as a response to climate change.

The Brut cuvée is the House Style

In sparkling wine, the top prestige and luxury cuvées will always command the limelight. They represent the very best wine that a House can make, and only come in relatively small and exclusive quantities. Such wines, like EBB, represent the state of the art.

However, it’s also the case that the wine that represents the House and its signature style is almost always the Brut cuvée. This is the volume wine that shoulders the burden of income generation and is an introduction to the other cuvées in the range. Consequently, this is the wine on which reputations rest.

Moreover, this wine must be consistently meet customer expectations, a challenge renewed annually, as every harvest year is different.  That’s why the great sparkling wines of the world are brands. Variations are ironed out by blending grapes, sites and even years into a recognisable House style. Its a recipe to be honed over decades or even centuries, and tweaked as little as possible. Fiddle with that recipe at your peril.

Franciacorta and climate change

Franciacorta, in Lombardy, northern Italy, is the DOCG region that makes Italy’s world-class sparkling wine, emphasising complexity and finesse. It uses the Classic Method with Chardonnay, Pinot Bianco and Pinot Nero. However, the climate of this small region, at the southern end of Lake Iseo, has always been moderated by proximity to the lake. Once, this meant vintages were generally warm, benign and reliable.

However, over 15 years ago, Franciacorta producers realised that increasing global warming (see the graphic for Milan, left) would soon threaten the style of the wines and that vintages would suffer more extreme and unpredictable events, such as heatwaves, droughts and violent storms. They knew they would need to adapt, but this takes time. Meanwhile, the Paris climate agreement now lies in tatters, the +1.5℃ limit breached.

Looking for adaptations

In Franciacorta, the harvest is now at the end of July, which is 3-4 weeks earlier than previously. While this action preserves acidity and moderates alcohol, essential properties of sparkling wine, the grapes can be less physiologically mature, so this risks a lack of complexity and finesse instead. The dosage required to balance the wine after disgorgement is also becoming smaller, and there is also a trend towards Pas Dosé, or Brut Zero styles.

One possible alternative solution was to find a genuinely local grape variety that could ensure high acidity and limit alcohol, but without changing the flavours, aromas and textures in the wine and without reducing the longevity necessary for maturation and cellaring. After all, the minimum ageing of Franciacorta spumante is 18 months on the lees, with Millisimato (vintage year) wines at 30 months. Riserva has a minimum of 60 months. Producers often extend these times considerably.

A search found a potential candidate: a local Lombardian white grape called Erbamat, languishing in obscurity, kept from extinction by a few growers. Its properties led to experimental field grafting, micro-vinifications and research studies, which in turn led to its inclusion into the DOCG rules back in 2017.

Erbamat

Erbamat is an old variety first documented in 1564.  It comes from nearby Valtenèsi, on the Lombardy (Brescia) side of Lake Garda. DNA tests show that it’s also identical to the Verdealbara from Trento, which is similarly obscure and also almost extinct.

Taken on its own, Erbamat is no one’s idea of a good time, as any varietal still wine made with it is thin and mouth-puckeringly tart. I believe there are none!

Erbamat is late-ripening, 4-6 weeks after Chardonnay and Pinot, at the end of September. Erbamat was also difficult to ripen consistently, needing heat. Now it has that. Wine made from it has little colour, isn’t aromatic, is neutral in flavour, and it retains high malic acidity with low sugar (and hence less alcohol). Anybody who has ever tried the still base wines that are destined for sparkling wine (Vin Clairs) will know that these once unattractive properties are now exactly what’s required to blend in!

It was approved for inclusion by the Franciacorta DOCG Consorzio at a maximum of 10% of a blend from the 2017 harvest onwards. It can now be used in all the Franciacorta styles except the specialist Satén. This is all very well, but for most producers, it’s only now that sufficient Erbamat grapes are becoming available. For example, Mosnel has one hectare of Erbamat.

Magic bullet?

There are no magic bullets. However, there are now Franciacorta DOCG cuvées containing the maximum 10% Erbamat commercially available. However, these are usually newly created wines, rather than an alteration to an established brand. I’d argue that those wines belong to an entirely new specialist category of terroir-style wines extending existing ranges.

The risk of including Erbamat in an existing wine is that it fundamentally changes an established recipe, and hence is a risk to the existing brand. So the key question is, can you blend in Erbamat in such a way as to preserve freshness and longevity, yet retain the flavour, aroma and texture profile?

It’s time to find out.

Mosnel Franciacorta Brut

Mosnel Franciacorta Brut, 44^a  Cuvée,  DOCG, NV.  12%

This is the first release of the Brut Cuvée to include Erbamat.

Technical

Chardonnay 71%, Pinot Bianco 23%, Pinot Nero 5%, Erbamat 1%. Hand-harvested grape bunches are pneumatically pressed, with the first and second pressings are kept separate. Fermentation is with cultured yeasts, 70% in stainless steel, 30% in small oak barriques with malolactic fermentation. Disgorgement in December 2024, after 30 months on the less (far longer than the minimum 18 months). DIAM Mytik cork. Released spring 2025. 130,000 bottles.

Tasting

This wine has a subtle white-gold hue and a slender bead of tiny bubbles. Aromatically, it blends elderflower and hawthorn flowers with citrus fruits. Moving to the palate, there’s plenty of tangy fresh acidity balanced by a creamy texture and moderate alcohol. It suggests an impression of tautness and precision. There’s an intensity and harmony to the pear and apple fruit that concludes with a clean mineral sensation and a refreshing almond finish.

This 1% addition of Erbamat is unlikely to change the profile or consistency of this wine and is probably undetectable by anyone not intimately involved in the blending process at Mosnel. I certainly can’t detect any meaningful difference when referring to notes made about previous releases, and there’s no loss of finesse. In rival Franciacorta wines, 5 -10 % Erbamat might be detectable, but I assume there is no reason to add that much in this cuvée, at least for now. It seems a clever strategy to include Erbamat now and only increase the contribution as necessary. There should be no adverse reaction from either wine critics or customers, because there is no diminution of excellence.

As for longevity, the wine has come this far unscathed, and longevity seems a given, though only time will tell accurately.

Food

This is a Franciacorta that excels with food rather than as an apéritif. I’d suggest shellfish of all stripes. Or try it with a cheeseboard.

UK Availability

Available at several UK merchants, including The Great Wine Co. at £33.00. Please check the bottle’s “back label” to ensure it states 44th Edition with Erbamat included, as older editions may still be available.

 

And Finally

If ever there was proof that preserving the DNA of obscure and rare grape varieties is essential as a hedge against the future, Erbamat is it. Maybe those producers feeling the heat in other sparkling wine regions might also consider adopting it. Wouldn’t that be a turnaround for a hitherto unloved variety!

Meanwhile, I can’t think of a better wine to toast Mosnel’s 190th anniversary next year than with a glass of this Mosnel Franciacorta Brut.

That’s Mosnel – still transforming grapes into emotions – in a reliably consistent and calculated way!

 

Location

Azienda Agricola il Mosnel di Emanuela Barboglio e Figli
Contrada Barboglio, 14
Ingresso da Via Giuseppe Cesare Abba, 38
25050 Camignone
Brescia
Italy

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