The fine wines of the Langhe > Novello wine

Novello wine is often considered as a “new” wine, but this beverage was born from a specific production, which is different from the usual one as far as type of vinification is concerned. This method was created by a team of French researchers in 1934. One of the experiments consisted of preserving grapes at low temperatures with carbon dioxide. After some months they realized that grapes became gassy and sparkling, with a peculiar taste which was not unpleasant. Naturally, the grapes were no longer suitable for the market, and they decided to vinify them; the resulting wine was certainly “diverse” but pleasant. French Novello wine is named after its area of production: Beaujolais Novuveau. In the last years, the fashion of Novello wine influenced Italian consumers and producers. But how can a wine be ready after few weeks from the vintage? The secret is called carbon maceration, from which it results a smelly wine: it consists in filling a container with grapes, then closing it hermetically for 7-18 days at 30°C, saturating it with carbon dioxide. A minimum part of grapes, the ones in the lower position, is squashed by the weight of the grapes in the higher positions and frees must which starts to ferment, thank to the enzymes which grapes contain, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide; this gas saturates the ambient rapidly, so that the intact cells of the grapes modify their metabolism, by carrying out a type of intra-cellular fermentation (or auto-fermentation) and cede the color to the pulp. At the end of the period of staying in the container, which is saturated with carbon dioxide, the grapes contain a quantity of acids which is very much lower to the one contained in the beginning; moreover, new odorous components are formed, which reminds of strawberry and raspberry, and an intense grape fruity smell. At this point the entire mass is pressed and placed in a fermentation container where, in two or three days, it will terminate the transformation of the sugars into alcohol. The wine which is obtained ripens so shortly that it has to be bottled by the end of December and consumed in a few months. As far as Beaujolais Nouveau wine is concerned, according to French law, it can be sold after the midnight of the third Wednesday of November of the same year in which the vintage took place. Italian legislation disposes that Novello wine can be sold the sixth of November of the year of the vintage. It is also obligatory to carbon-macerate at least the 30% of the grapes, while the remaining 70% can be vinified traditionally. It has to be underlined that the carbon maceration vinification method, besides peculiar olfaction characteristics, gives the wine a particularly vivacious color, with tonalities which reminds of purple, and a taste where it predominates freshness. In Italy the production is spread all over the national territory. Nowadays there is a production of near 15 millions of bottles; there are near 60 DOC Novello wine types, while 160 are Typical Geographic Indications.