Our Vin Santo Gambellara Doc
The name calls to the mind legends and great stories from the past.
The theories about the origin of the name are innumerable, but we like to remember those that are more closely linked to our family and those that our father Luigino always told us. The first is that Vin Santo was the wine used in the past during the religious celebrations. The second one refers to the production cycle. Holy Week was the period when the drying period ended and the consequent beginning of the pressing and then fermentation starts.
What makes our Vin Santo unique is the ageing period: the wine ferments and matures in small barrels, called “caratelli” for at least 10 years. The “caratelli” are never moved and therefore they undergo the high temperature changes which go from 35° C in summer to 3° C in winter.
After 10 years, the winemaker Nicola Dal Maso decides whether the wine is ready to be put on the market or if it needs more time to age.
The final wine will be a wine with an amber yellow color but very bright.
In the nose it is a wine that gives sweet notes of dates, dried figs, toasted hazelnuts, caramel and nutmeg.
In the palate it is imperious and characterized by a great freshness that brings out notes of coffee and chocolate reaching a very long persistence.
“An eternal wine”, this is how Nicola Dal Maso defines it. “It is a wine that during its 10 and more years of aging has undergone a great evolution: once in the bottle it can only improve”.
For us it is a wine to hold for great occasions, as it was done in the past: Vin Santo was in fact produced and then consumed in the “unique” moments of a family such as weddings and births.
Why don’t we take these old traditions up again?