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Wine Description
The Story
Pelago joined the list of the most sought-after Italian wines in the world in 1997, with its first year of production, when it won the Best Red Wine trophy at the International Wine Challenge in London. Pelago is the result of the insight of our technical group, who had the idea of mating Montepulciano with Cabernet Sauvignon. It is a wine which retains the style and personality of the indigenous grapes while broadening its aromatic profile and complexity by adding qualities of the Bordeaux style of wine. To maintain a high standard of quality, we chose to produce it only in those years which provided grapes suitable for a fine wine. The name Pelago, deriving from pelagos, meaning ‘sea’ in ancient Greek, suggests its marine character and the special qualities of taste and aroma which are typical of wines produced near the coast.
First vintage: 1994
Vineyards: The vineyard from which Pelago originates is situated on our estate in the municipality of Osimo, at about 150 meters above sea level, on a south-east- facing hillside. The terrain, which started out as marine formations from the Pleiocene-Pleistocene era, consists of very deep soil, a very calcareous clay loam. The yield is limited by very close pruning and targeted thinning, and can vary from five to six tons per hectare according to the season.
The estate that covers a total of 35 hectares, San Lorenzo is one of the vineyards the Bianchi-Bernettis have owned for longest. It was here in the mid Sixties that the family began planting plots for the production of Rosso Conero. It was here, too, that the first small plot of Cabernet Sauvignon was planted in the mid Eighties.
From the mid Nineties, the estate’s constant experiments with more modern, rational vine cultivation techniques led to the replanting of most of the old vines at much higher densities using cordon training and spur pruning. In the meantime, this superb vineyard produced wines like Cumaro, San Lorenzo and Pelago. The vineyard’s best growing site was replanted in the early Noughties with vines that would, along with a section of an adjacent older vineyard, become the heart of a project the created Campo San Giorgio.
Harvest: The grapes are picked by hand, and collected and transported in boxes. Harvesting starts at the beginning of September with the Merlot, continues at the end of the month with the Cabernet Sauvignon, and finishes with the Monte- pulciano, a fairly late variety, in the second ten days in October, when the grapes have reached peak condition with an advanced degree of phenolic ripening.
Winemaking: The grapes are destalked and lightly crushed, then fermented at 27-29°C in steel fermentation tanks, with the cap submerged, for 14-15 days on natural yeasts. Once the malolactic fermentation has taken place, the wine is trans- ferred to 225 litre oak barrels for ageing, for a period of 14 months. After bottling, Pelago is left to age further, in a temperature-controlled environment, for about 12 months.
Winemaker's tasting notes: Impenetrable ruby red colour with purple tints. On the nose, intense, clean and refined aromas are released: spicy fragrances of coffee, black pepper, liquorice and tobacco open out on a background of grass and hay, typical of Cabernet. In the mouth, the impact is of fruits of the forest, vanilla and mineral aromas, and strong but developed tannins with taste sensations in harmony with the wine’s full body.
Serving glass: A large glass, with a fairly broad body. This allows the correct oxygenation of red wines which have had long ageing in bottle and whose tannins have taken on a softer character, developing complex tertiary aromas which will be well-concentrated in the narrower opening of the glass.
