134 zones in the appellation, precisely and meticulously demarcated by the “wine cartographer”, Alessandro Masnaghetti, trying to find the right balance between detail, zone extension, history and tradition. This is the first milestone in the zoning process of Franciacorta, a territory that, with 19.5 million bottles sold per year, ranks at the top among Italian appellations dedicated to classic method sparkling wine. And which, after three years of silent work, presented today, in Erbusco, the first “Map of the Vineyards and Zones of Franciacorta”. Zones that, the Consortium led by Silvano Brescianini specifies, do not carry with them any intent of classification, but finally help to identify and enhance, in Franciacorta, homogeneous areas in terms of landscape, history, toponymy and tradition.
The “wine cartographer” Alessandro Masnaghetti, explains that “the valorization of a wine can and must also pass through the valorization of the land, and the valorization of the land cannot be separated from the recognition and regulation of names and places. All the more so since Franciacorta has been able to give this fieldwork an indisputable historical basis”.
Franciacorta, first in Italy and thanks to the work of the late Paolo Oscar, has succeeded in digitizing the Napoleonic Cadastre relating to its area. The same Cadastre that, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, was the basis of the official introduction in Burgundy of lieux-dits and that, in Franciacorta, often provided precise and indispensable feedback to the toponymy used in the Map. However, the Map is not “only” history, tradition and toponymy. It is also an attempt, thanks to the text published on the back of the Map itself, to describe Franciacorta in a way that is as simple as it is effective, with the sole aim of finally creating a common language in describing the appellation. From geology, putting aside technicalities that are often difficult to decipher and focusing instead on the most obvious and peculiar aspects, to landscape, providing clear and precise geographical references that will allow everyone to “read” the appellation directly in the field.