Do we ship to you?.
Also Recommended
Picture
Product Name
Vintage
Price
Varietal
Country
Region
Appellation
Size
Additional Discount
Original Item
2011
$68.59
Champagne Blend
Italy
Lombardy
Franciacorta
750ml
6B / $67.80
Better Price, Same Score
2016
$66.79
Champagne Blend
Italy
Trentino/Alto Adige
750ml
Closest Match
2012
$67.94
Champagne Blend
Italy
Lombardy
Franciacorta
750ml
6B / $66.58
Best QPR in Price range
2017
$71.14
Champagne Blend
Italy
Lombardy
Franciacorta
750ml
More wines available from Barone Pizzini
750ml
Bottle:
$39.94
White spring flower, orange zest and bread crust aromas are front and center. The elegant, creamy palate offers...
750ml
Bottle:
$29.94
$32.80
The NV Franciacorta Golf 1927 is composed mostly of Chardonnay with a dollop of Pinot Noir. It’s rich and floral...
750ml
Bottle:
$64.79
The grapes for this wine come from a single vineyard where the more than twenty-year-old vines enjoy the benefits of...
750ml
Bottle:
$48.79
The sensual and georgic Pinot noir, of our vineyards seized by the woods, transfuses into the glass undergrowth notes...
More Details
Winery
Barone Pizzini
Vintage: 2011
The year 2011 was an interesting year for many northern and central European countries, as the weather was more than unpredictable in the spring and summer. However, in most countries, the climatic conditions thankfully settled down in the late summer and fall. The result of this slightly difficult year of weather in France was a set of surprisingly small yields, but overall, these yields were of a higher quality than those harvested in certain previous years. A fantastic set of wines was also made in Italy and Spain, and the Rioja wines - when released - are set to be very good indeed. Austria also had superb year in 2011, with almost fifty percent more grapes being grown and used for their distinctive Gruner Veltliner wines than in the year before. Possibly the European country which had the finest 2011, though, was Portugal, with wineries in the Douro region claiming this year to be one of the best in decades for the production of Port wine, and the bright, young Vinho Verdes wines.
In the New World, the Pacific Northwest saw some of the best weather of 2011, and Washington State and Oregon reportedly had a highly successful year, especially for the cultivation of high quality red wine grapes. Chile and Argentina had a relatively cool year, which certainly helped retain the character of many of their key grape varietals, and should make for some exciting drinking. South Africa had especially good weather for their white wine grape varietals, particularly Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, and many South African wineries are reporting 2011 as one of their best years in recent memory.
Varietal: Champagne Blend
The sparkling wines of Champagne have been revered by wine drinkers for hundreds of years, and even today they maintain their reputation for excellence of flavor and character, and are consistently associated with quality, decadence, and a cause for celebration. Their unique characteristics are partly due to the careful blending of a small number of selected grape varietals, most commonly Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. These grapes, blended in fairly equal quantities, give the wines of Champagne their wonderful flavors and aromas, with the Pinot Noir offering length and backbone, and the Chardonnay varietal giving its acidity and dry, biscuity nature. It isn't unusual to sometimes see Champagne labeled as 'blanc de blanc', meaning it is made using only Chardonnay varietal grapes, or 'blanc de noir', which is made solely with Pinot Noir.
Region: Lombardy
The beautiful region of Lombardy in north west Italy may be dominated by the huge metropolitan center of Milan and the industrial areas which surround it, but there is also plenty of unspoilt green space in the region which has proven itself to be ideal for viticulture over the centuries. In particular, the area around the enormous and ever popular Lake Garda has shown itself to be an ideal wine producing region, as the lowlands enjoy cooler temperatures than many of the surrounding areas, which allow grapes to ripen more slowly and fully. The Lake Garda vineyards are most well known for the exceedingly high quality Trebbiano di Laguna grapes, used to make a superb white wine which has become something of a flagship for the region. However, today there are dozens of wineries in Lombardy growing a wide range of red and white grapes, and producing wines of excellent character and flavor.
Country: Italy
For several decades in the mid to late twentieth century, Italy's reputation for quality wines took a fairly serious blow. This was brought about partly due to lack of regulation in certain regions, and too much regulation in others. This led to several wineries in the beautiful and highly fertile region of Tuscany making the bold move to work outside of the law, which they saw as responsible for the drop in quality in Tuscan wines. They believed that they had the expertise and the generations of experience necessary with which to make truly excellent, world class wines, and set about doing just that. These 'Super Tuscans', as they came to be known, quickly inspired the rest of Italy to improve their produce, and now, Italian wine producers in the twenty-first century are widely recognised to be amongst the best in the world. Regulation and law began to change, and wine drinkers across the globe woke up to the outstanding wines coming out of Italy, which are continuing to improve and impress to this day.