Wines of Great Beauty...
To produce a good wine you have to think like a sculptor looking at a block of rough stone. He is able to read the veins that run through it, sensing, even before starting, the possibility of creating a work of art. Primo Franco writes with tireless curiosity the opening chapters of a fundamental biography: the history of Prosecco di Valdobbiadene in the great international kitchens. Valdobbiadene, or the «valley of Duplaviis», the Piave river. A series of hills with vertiginous slopes. Sudden drops that rise from the Veneto plain to the Prealps in a series of terraces inlaid with vineyards. Valdobbiadene is a countryside with an ancient and prodigious flavor, tinged with bright green and immersed in the light of a painting by Canaletto. A land where every operation in the vineyard is necessarily manual because the rows follow the slopes of the hills or attempt impossible ascents, projecting themselves into the thick of a forest.
Nino Franco grapes come entirely from the Conegliano-Valdobbiadene denomination. They are harvested by hand and vinified within the area historically best suited to Prosecco, recognized by the regulations as the pinnacle of production quality. All the parcels of Nino Franco extend within the Municipality of Valdobbiadene, plots no larger than a few hectares from which the company's single vineyards are obtained: Riva di San Floriano, Nodi and Grave di Stecca, "Grand Cru" of Prosecco intimately linked to the territory of origin.
The "Valle del Piave" has ancient origins. The soils emerged from ancestral seabeds and were shaped by the tongues of the Dolomite glaciers. Pushing on the Prealps, the Alpine glaciers dug deep valleys, transporting enormous quantities of sediment torn from the rocks. The soils of Valdobbiadene are deep, varied, made up of rocky and sandy conglomerates, to which are added good quantities of clay, minerals and iron. In the Conegliano area, the easternmost point of the denomination, the hills are gentler and more sinuous: loamy soils prevail, fathers of wines with a more marked structure. The “Mandamento” of Valdobbiadene is instead steep and difficult land, with soils with a texture that is sometimes fine, sometimes rich in skeleton, in some places very gravelly. Poor soils, which push the roots of the Glera deep down, giving Prosecco complex aromas and that gentle acidity, with a savoury note, which has made them famous throughout the world for their ease of drinking and delicious elegance.