Winery Paco Velho Lima Vinhão

There’s been a focus on making wine production less energy intensive as well as environmentally friendly in order to address climate change. The efforts continue but, as is the case for electric cars where it’s the battery technology that needs innovating, it’s in wine bottles where we’re seeing rapid change. It comes in a two-pronged attack to reduce energy use in manufacturing and then an even bigger emphasis on reducing bottle weight for shipping to reduce fuel usage and thus CO2 production. ...

Franciacorta producers have reported sales up by 28.3% last year, compared to 2020, when sales fell by nearly 10% to 15.8 million bottles. Sales of 20.3m bottles in 2021 were also higher than the pre-pandemic total of 17.6m bottles in 2019, according to the Franciacorta Consortium. It declined to disclose the value of sales, but there is optimism among winemakers that more consumers are discovering these traditional-method sparkling wines from Brescia in Lombardy. Arturo Ziliani, CEO of Berlucch ...

I n 2009 Prosecco was re-mapped in sweeping changes that created an extensive new zone for the production of Prosecco DOC and elevated the traditional growing areas of Valdobbiadene-Conegliano to DOCG, Italy’s top denomination. At that time, one might have overlooked the fact that the new legislation also created a small, independent DOCG for Asolo Prosecco to the west of the river Piave. The sparkling wines of the area had low visibility, producers were few and production was limited. However t ...