Winemaker Notes
The Canella winery was founded in 1947 after World War II by Luciano Canella. Luciano’s parents owned a small, restaurant in San Donà di Piave. Luciano began to search the surrounding areas for the best wines to match his mother’s cuisine when he thought about creating his own wine. He put this idea into action and set up a state-of-theart winery specializing in Prosecco. Canella Prosecco became a phenomenal success. Throughout the decades that followed, Luciano focused on spreading the word about his winery and branding his wines to make them easily recognizable. However, the Canella family not only provides the world with fizz, fun, and freshness from Canella Proseccos; they have also become masters at blending those zesty bubbles with succulent fruit in delicious, colorful cocktails. In 1988 Luciano had the idea to be the first to bottle Bellini. Up until this point, real Bellini was only enjoyed in Venice where the ingredients were available. The challenge Luciano faced was how to bottle the cocktail while retaining its pristine, juicy freshness. It took some trial and error, but ultimately Luciano was triumphant and more than 25 years later, the Canella’s dream has come to fruition. Canella Bellini stands as a benchmark of freshness and a tribute to Venetian creativity and entrepreneurial spirit. With the success of Bellini, the Canella winery turned its attention to other cocktails including a vibrant Blood Orange Mimosa and delicately sweet Rossini.
Producing every style of wine and with great success, the Veneto is one of the most multi-faceted wine regions of Italy.
Veneto's appellation called Valpolicella (meaning “valley of cellars” in Italian) is a series of north to south valleys and is the source of the region’s best red wine with the same name. Valpolicella—the wine—is juicy, spicy, tart and packed full of red cherry flavors. Corvina makes up the backbone of the blend with Rondinella, Molinara, Croatina and others playing supporting roles. Amarone, a dry red, and Recioto, a sweet wine, follow the same blending patterns but are made from grapes left to dry for a few months before pressing. The drying process results in intense, full-bodied, heady and often, quite cerebral wines.
Soave, based on the indigenous Garganega grape, is the famous white here—made ultra popular in the 1970s at a time when quantity was more important than quality. Today one can find great values on whites from Soave, making it a perfect choice as an everyday sipper! But the more recent local, increased focus on low yields and high quality winemaking in the original Soave zone, now called Soave Classico, gives the real gems of the area. A fine Soave Classico will exhibit a round palate full of flavors such as ripe pear, yellow peach, melon or orange zest and have smoky and floral aromas and a sapid, fresh, mineral-driven finish.
Much of Italy’s Pinot grigio hails from the Veneto, where the crisp and refreshing style is easy to maintain; the ultra-popular sparkling wine, Prosecco, comes from here as well.
A term typically reserved for Champagne and Sparkling Wines, non-vintage or simply “NV” on a label indicates a blend of finished wines from different vintages (years of harvest). To make non-vintage Champagne, typically the current year’s harvest (in other words, the current vintage) forms the base of the blend. Finished wines from previous years, called “vins de reserve” are blended in at approximately 10-50% of the total volume in order to achieve the flavor, complexity, body and acidity for the desired house style. A tiny proportion of Champagnes are made from a single vintage.
There are also some very large production still wines that may not claim one particular vintage. This would be at the discretion of the winemaker’s goals for character of the final wine.