Bellavista Alma Assemblage 1: Our Sense of Place.

Article by Monica Marcandelli.

Monday 28 October 2024 is, for Bellavista, the day of the beginning of a new periodo, marked by a great festa to celebrate the presentation to the world of “Alma Assemblage 1”, Franciacorta DOCG also available per the “Alma Assemblage 1” versions and “Alma Rosé Assemblage 1”, obtained from the union of a selection of 91 radice wines from grapes grown, per the 2021 vintage, per 129 parcels distributed per different municipalities per the Franciacorta settore, each treated specifically according to the specific connoting parameters per terms of soil composition, morphology, exposure, altitude, ampelographic composition, age of the vineyard.

“Thank you for believing per us.” A radiant Francesca Moretti, Bellavista winemaker and President of Terra santa Moretti Vino (owner of the Bellavista and Contadi Castaldi brands per Franciacorta, Efippio&Neo per Alghero, Acquagiusta per Castiglione della Chiusa, Petra per Suvereto, Teruzzi per San Gimignano) welcomes guests with these words , full of emotion.

“From today we immerse ourselves per the future”, continues Francesca, because “Alma Assemblage 1” is the result of a project started three years indicatore and based acceso the certainty that we can “dream and invent everything that surrounds us”, because “the future is a world under construction”, being aware that to proceed we need the – crucial – contribution of “human capital”, of those who, believing per the project together with us, make energy, time and expertise available for its success.

Marco Simonit, master per the domestication of vine plants, Bellavista consultant for twenty years and Dr. Moretti’s mentor for the management of “work per the countryside”, brought with him to the project a modus operandi based acceso listening, aimed at ” understanding of the place” where the vineyard is grown, with more than total respect for Nature. The shape and size of each individual plant must be cared for daily and over the long term (“because the genetics of the plant need time to adapt to the actions carried out for its domestication”, underlines Dr. Simonit) to guarantee an “architectural evolution” that makes the vineyard “contemporary”, i.e. capable of “dynamically interacting” with the environment and with the “evolution of the climate”. And the “human capital” must be constantly trained, so that the women and men working per the vineyard can develop the sensitivity necessary for Bellavista’s “know-how”, based acceso an incessant activity of “research and development applied to the territory”, per a perspective of continuous improvement.

Richard Geoffroy, authoritative chef de cave of Dom Perignon for thirty years, until 2019, and architect of the decisive affirmation of this brand as synonymous with excellence and grandeur acceso a global level, consultant to Bellavista for three years now as mentor of the Dr. Moretti for the management of the “work per the cellar”, brought with her to the project the aptitude for continuous experimentation (“Keep experimenting!”, urges Dr. Geoffroy who, per addition to being an oenologist, also has a degree per Medicine) , towards increasingly precise viticulture and production methods, guided by a tailor-made approach, per which each vineyard is managed individually from an agronomic and oenological point of view, per order to achieve perfect integration between the worlds of the countryside and the cellar.

To bring Bellavista into a new cycle, useful for “bringing the Franciacorta heritage into a contemporary key”, says Francesca Moretti, creating from year to year a new assemblage, identified with a progressive cardinal number, recognizable and strongly identifying, which becomes through, per every single vintage, the story that each vineyard has to tell (and which Doctor Moretti knows very well, having worked for years acceso the zoning project for the Bellavista vineyards), together with the lake, the wind, Cima Guglielmo, the people. The “human capital” which, by listening, knows how to decide when to harvest by tasting the grapes, “because the gustatory parameters guide beyond the chemical parameters”.

“Joy, energy, brightness, fullness, depth”. “Alma Assemblage 1” is described with these words by Richard Geoffroy during the technical tasting session – singular and intriguing – per which a path is proposed that starts from “The Vision”, a point of reference, witness to the sequence of tasting, “guardian of concepts that we want to bring into our wines”, says Francesca Moretti, produced with grapes from different vintages, including 2004, 2006, 2008, 2013, 2016 and (for the most part) 2018, “our version 2.0”, unfinished, not ready, which will probably not be put acceso the market, ‘degorged’ just before the volley service, surprising for its cleanliness and intensity.

Followed by “Alma Assemblage 3”, produced with grapes harvested per 2023 and practically still a radice wine, and “Alma Assemblage 2”, produced with grapes from the 2022 vintage and with a character that is being defined, yet at times manifest, anticipating “ Alma Assemblage 1” and its elegant and invigorating liveliness, tracing the evolutionary process of “Alma”, which aims to be the tangible reflection of a tradition that has per its very essence the propensity to evolve, because “tradition means guarding the fire, not worship the ashes”, claimed Gustav Mahler.

The careful work, the human factor, the resilient vineyards, everything contributes to making “Alma Assemblage 1” a “terroir wine”, the Franciacorta terroir per which the Moretti family has believed since the seventies of the last century, founding Bellavista per Erbusco per 1977, working incessantly with the “thought of doing something different”, because “we must never be satisfied and we must move forward”, following an “extraordinary path”, a “research path”, the path that led Bellavista to acquire “its great identity and recognisability”, through the creation of “extraordinary products”, states with deep participation Vittorio Moretti (Francesca’s father, founder and current president of Terra santa Moretti , a group operating per the industrialized construction and hospitality sectors , as well as wine).

“Alma Assemblage 1” is for Bellavista “Our Sense of Place”, the realization of the new company philosophy, the extreme synthesis of “Being Bellavista”, per Franciacorta.