Altos de Pinto Bandeira, positioned in Brazil’s southern Serra Gaúcha wine area, has been recognised as a DO for conventional methodology glowing wines. The brand new DO, which is the primary within the New World that’s solely for glowing wines, was introduced on 29 November 2022. The primary wines labelled DO Altos de Pinto Bandeira will arrive out there this 12 months.
The transfer follows 10 years of campaigning and analysis by the Pinto Bandeira Wine Producers Affiliation (Asprovinho). It labored with our bodies together with Embrapa Grape and Wine (the state-owned Brazilian Agricultural Analysis Company, affiliated with Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture), the College of Caxias do Sul and the Federal College of Rio Grande do Sul.
Altos de Pinto Bandeira was first recognised as a singular location for producing glowing wines by Chilean winemaker Mario Geisse. He moved to Brazil in 1976 to work for Moët & Chandon’s Chandon Brazil operation. He then based his personal Familia Geisse vineyard in Pinto Bandeira in 1979.
Winemaker Mario Geisse. Photograph by Julie Sheppard
‘This area has one thing very uncommon, which I first encountered 40 years in the past,’ stated Geisse. ‘It could produce grapes which might be on the optimum of sugar and acidity in the intervening time of harvesting. These traits are very marked on this area and permit us to elaborate wines which might be typical of the area, with out defects.’
Jorge Tonietto, Embrapa Grape and Wine researcher added: ‘This DO has structural equivalence and appropriates a excessive qualitative stage, akin to that current within the prestigious DOs of Champagne glowing wines from France, or Franciacorta from Italy.’
Altos de Pinto Bandeira DO covers 65km² (6,500ha) unfold throughout three totally different municipalities on the left financial institution of the Vale do Rio das Antas: Pinto Bandeira (76.6%), Farroupilha (19%) and Bento Gonçalves (4.4%). Options of the area’s distinctive terroir embody soils of volcanic basalt that provide pure irrigation within the vineyards. Common rainfall is 1,400mm and common altitude of vineyards is 632m.
Three grape varieties are permitted within the DO: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Riesling Italico (Welschriesling). Yields are restricted to 12 tonnes per hectare, with strict management guidelines for conventional methodology manufacturing within the vineyard. At present 4 wineries are permitted to label their wines DO Altos de Pinto Bandeira: Geisse, Aurora, Don Giovanni and Valmarino.
Brazilian wine skilled Maurício Roloff, training director of the Brazilian Sommelier Affiliation, stated: ‘That is a part of the bigger course of of getting glowing wine as Brazil’s flagship wine model. It’s nonetheless a really vast class, but it surely’s the one factor individuals discuss with Brazilian wine. So having this DO exhibits us as specialists in glowing.’
