Curtefranca DOC

The still wines of Franciacorta. When the sparkling wine took the region’s name for its DOCG, the still red and white that had shared it needed a new one, and in 2008 they became Curtefranca — after Corte Franca, one of the communes, and after the curtes francae, the tax-exempt monastic courts that gave the whole district its name.

The Terroir The registered file is clear about the lake. Franciacorta sits close to Lake Iseo and enjoys its effects: in summer the heat is moderated by the currents that blow down the corridor of the Val Camonica and the lake, and in winter the lake re-emits the heat it has stored, moderating temperatures. Pedologically, the file says, Franciacorta is heterogeneous, with six distinct vocational units — morainic amphitheatre ground left by the retreating Camonica glacier, ranging from gravel to clay within very short distances.

The History The vine has been present here spontaneously since prehistory. Documents of the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries, the file notes, from the archives of important monastic institutions, attest to vine cultivation scattered more or less everywhere, favoured by the climate and the soils. And it records the modern date that matters: the DOC was created in 1967, among the first in Italy.

Grape Varieties The red is a Bordeaux blend — Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Carmenère — described in the file as bright red with ruby highlights, fruity and sometimes herbaceous, medium-bodied and velvety, with more structure and complexity in the vigna version. The white is Chardonnay and Pinot Bianco.

The Critical Take Curtefranca has the hardest job in Italian wine: it is the still wine of a region that everyone visits for bubbles, made from the same vineyards, and it is almost always the second thing a producer talks about. That is a shame, because the Bordeaux blend works here for the same reason the sparkling does — gravelly morainic soil and a lake that keeps the season long. The best bottles are medium-weight, herbal, properly dry and genuinely food wines, and they cost a third of what the Franciacorta from the next row does. The weak ones taste like an afterthought, which is what they are.

A Name Changed by Law Until 2008 these wines were Terre di Franciacorta. The rename was forced by the obvious problem that a buyer seeing “Franciacorta” on a still label assumed a mistake or a downgrade. It solved the confusion and cost the wines the only name anyone recognised — a fair trade in principle, and a hard one in practice.

At the Table Brescian cooking: casoncelli, braised beef, roast guinea fowl, lake fish for the white, and Bagoss cheese. Red at 16–17°C, white at 10–12°C.

Benchmark Producers Ca’ del Bosco, Bellavista, Barone Pizzini, Ferghettina.