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 The result was announced last week in London. The title was based on the nine gold medals won by the Trentodoc wines produced by Ferrari, from Ferrari Maximum Brut to Giulio Ferrari Riserva del Fondatore. It prevailed in the final round over two renowned Champagne producers: Charles Heidsieck and Luis Roederer. In addition, Ferrari Perlé 2006 Trentodoc was declared as the Best Italian Sparkling Wine. The awards included seven Best in Class awards and Best Trentodoc (Regional Champion) for their nine entries. Additionally, Cuvage Rosé from Piemonte received the Chairman’s Trophy, awarded this year for the most exciting sparkling wine.
Tom Stevenson, the well-known wine writer, author and organiser of this international competition, highlighted this trophy and said it was “recognition of the most successful wine producer in the competition. There were three producers in contention and I really am glad there was a clear winner.” Champagne Roederer’s Cristal Rosé 2004 was named Supreme World Champion.
The Italian obsession with making good quality ‘champagne’ goes back to 1902 when the founder of the Trentino-based Ferrari Wine Company went to Champagne to study about making Champagne-styled sparkling wines with similar grapes and terroir. With this crowing, Giulio Ferrari must have smiled from his grave.
While the first edition of the competition had crowned Ferrari Perlé 2007 as World Champion Sparkling Wine Outside Champagne, the prizes awarded this year commend Ferrari Trentodoc as a Metodo Classico able to compete with the best Champagnes in the world, providing further proof of the extraordinary location of Trentino and its mountain viticulture to produce excellent sparkling wines, says the Release.
This international acknowledgment comes a few days after Ferrari was nominated for The Best European Winery by Wine Enthusiast at the Wine Star Awards, the prestigious prize that the American magazine will award at the end of 2015.
Launched with the support and expertise of Essi Avellan MW and Dr. Tony Jordan, the CSWWC claims to be the first and only terroir-driven competition judged exclusively by internationally renowned Champagne & sparkling wine experts. Essi has been acknowledged as an excellent taster and has specialised in champagnes and other sparkling wines. Dr. Jordan has been the expert champagne and sparkling wine winemaker with Moet Hennessey for years before taking retirement and has been helping them in various projects including the Chandon project in India, where I had met him in Nashik a couple of years ago.
Ferrari has been my favourite bubbly since I visited the winery about 8 years ago and met Camilla Lunelli. When I was asked by the Editor of Upper Crust, the top-end food, wine, travel and luxury lifestyle magazine in Mumbai, to list 50 of my favourite wines for their 50th edition in June 2012, I had selected wines I had a personal encounter with and those with a story. One of the sparkling wines I chose was Ferrari Brut Spumante Trento DOC. My reasoning for selecting the Italian nugget was that ‘Franciacorta may be the Italian region known for champagne- like sparkling wines, but it is this bubbly produced from Chardonnay by the Lunelli family from Trentino which historically introduced the process. With the grapes and the terroir it has all the ingredients of making delicious wines a collage of which I was able to taste at their winery’.
At the opening of the World Wine Symposium in Villa d’Este in November 2009 where I have been invited every year, the organiser Francois Mauss had chosen Magnums of Ferrari Brut 2004 to kick off the event where top class wine personalities had gathered and congregate every year. I had then recorded in delWine about Aperitif Ferrari, ‘ The time for celebration started with 25 magnums of Ferrari 2004 poured into the glasses of the guests before dinner. The Trento DOC bubbly was the most popular pour at the Trento doc stand at the entry of the Wine Show in Torino earlier in the week. The reason was not difficult to assess. The bubbly made from the Champagne grapes, Pinot and Chardonnay and the first one in Trentino to use the Methode Champenoise, is considered the next best thing to Champagne. Easy and yet elegant, the bubbly is an anytime companion-for any celebration and what better occasion than the Davos of Wine!’ I had enjoyed their wines at Vino dal Salone in Torino merely a week earlier.
Interestingly, Ferrari has nothing to do with Ferrari cars. It is not popped at the Formula One races at the winners’ podium but rather Mumm’s which has a long term contract, according to what Carmella told me at the winery. Ferrari is interested and has tried to enter the Indian market but so far it has not been successful despite personal visits. Perhaps, this recognition of golden supremacy might help their cause.
For more information about the competition, visit http://www.champagnesparklingwwc.co.uk/.
Subhash Arora |