Collalto

It is a long history of love, day after day, year after year, that has woven its way into the intimate depths of our family. Love for those around us, for the land that has borne us, which to this day still enfolds us, and for the events that happen from time to time. Love for life, that in its slow procession has gifted us with all its beauty, all its charm.

For over a thousand years now, the Collalto name has intertwined with the land of Treviso and with one of its noblest and far-reaching treasures, wine. The enviable history of ancient landowning nobility; intimately, unquestionably bound to its local area; showing uncompromising respect for nature and its fruits, protecting its ecosystem and the wondrous landscape that this ancient land has provided us. This, in vibrant colours, is our photograph. A photograph that is still reproduced today and indeed gains new lustre with the magnificent estate of Susegana, with the uninterrupted dedication that is the hallmark of today’s heir to the family tradition – Principessa Isabella Collalto de CroŸ – with her wines’ indubitable reflection of their land of origin, and with her insatiable desire to do everything well.

Always aware that when one is enjoying life, time passes with incredible swiftness.

Terroir is an oft-misused term, or intentionally distorted, and subjected to the most varied explanations. The most exhaustive definition of terroir, in our opinion, is that given by the French National des Appellations d`Origine (INAO), and we would like to share it with you:

“A terroir is a delineated geographical space in which, in the course of its history, a human community accumulates collective production skills, based on a system of interactions between a physical and biological environment and a set of human factors. The socio-technical itineraries that come into play in this setting impart typicity, and generate a reputation for the goods/produce originating from the geographical space in question”.

The concept of terroir, then, can be combined naturally with the more restrictive term of cru, or vineyard, or an individual parcel of a vineyard, that has the aptitude of producing the absolutely finest wines, thus making such wines unique and recognisable from all others.

Thus, the complex of soil; climate; grape variety; and cultivational, technical, agronomic, and oenological knowledge constitutes a growing unicum capable of conveying, from the earth into the bottle, the wine’s entire heritage, hidden perhaps but no less invaluable. That is what we desire. That is what we strive for, the concepts of originality (displaying a sensory profile distinct from all others), typicity (immediate connection with the growing area’s heritage of varieties and styles), and reputation (name and recognition acquired through merit), all enhanced and subsumed into our wines.

For decades now, we have been working to achieve all this. The road ahead of us is still long, but our will to succeed fears no obstacles of any sort whatever.

Elegance, from our point of view, is nothing more than measure, grace, charm, and sober refinement. And it is this, harvest after harvest, that guides the birth of our wines, as we continuously observe nature, its developments and manifestations, as we systematically listen to our wines through every step of their production, tasting and re-tasting what our winemakers have fashioned, as we ceaselessly strive to understand where precisely is that magical rest-point of equilibrium in what we have created. Our wines wish to reflect all this: never pompous, never contrary to nature’s quality standards, never disjunctive from the hallmarks of their terroir, never alien from their corner of earth. In a word, judicious. To our way of thinking, the concept of elegance cannot help but imply, and at the same time reinforce, that of harmony.

Harmony understood as chromatic and structural proportion of every wine, as selection of appropriate agronomic and oenological practices, as adoption of proper, and never forced, winemaking practices, as due and correct ageing in the bottle before release to the market. This means, then, that the one-of-a-kindness of our wines, each produced with the fullest respect for the demands of terroir and the natural properties of the winemaking process, ensures that each assumes its own distinctive life and personality, representing something utterly unique as to style, aesthetics, and functionality.

The making of each of our wines is rooted in the preceding process of conceiving and planning it. This is hardly a sterile process; just the contrary. It assumes painstaking analyses and evaluations, constant observations in vineyard and cellar, endless tastings and judgments. It is in these activities that the winery’s different protagonists bring forward their own portmanteau of ideas, each bearing his own experience, expertise, and vision of the future. Everything is born from this, the essence of each wine, the actuation of each dream.