Nicola Gatta

Nicola Gatta was born in Gussago, raised in a winemaking family at the eastern edge of Franciacorta. He could have made Franciacorta - the vineyards qualify, the grapes are right. He chose not to. After spending time in Tuscany and Umbria observing conventional winemaking ("it was important to see what I wanted to do and, more importantly, what I did not want to do"), he came back to Gussago and committed to something more personal. The first ten to fifteen years were, by his own admission, very difficult.

Seven hectares in production today, divided across six small plots in Gussago and Cellatica - the main sites at 400-450 metres on calcareous limestone, plus the higher-altitude Civine project at around 650 metres on limestone rich in basalt, planted predominantly to Pinot Nero. Biodynamic farming. In the cellar: spontaneous fermentation with native yeasts, no fining, no filtration, zero added sulphites. Chardonnay and Pinot Nero only. Minimal or zero dosage across the range (maximum 3 g/L). Perpetual cask systems for base-wine complexity.

The estate's signature quirk is nomenclature. Gatta counts lees aging in lune - lunar cycles - rather than months. Each moon is approximately twenty-nine days, and the bottlings are named for their lees time: Cuvée Nature (30 lune), 400 (40 lune), Blanc de Blancs (50 lune), Rosé de Noirs (60 lune), Blanc de Noirs (70 lune), Molener (90 lune). The convention slows the reader down. It is also a way of quietly rejecting the month-counting of industrial sparkling for something more agricultural and more strange.

Production is around thirty-six thousand bottles across eight distinct wines, labelled without a DOCG or DOC classification - Vino Spumante di Qualità, on their own terms.

Gatta also runs the Bevitori ME.GA. (ME.GA. Drinkers Club) - a membership programme limited to around 750 people, with a waitlist. Members get a welcome kit with an R.D. Blanc de Blancs, year-round free shipping on a reserved shop, access to private tastings at the cellar and vineyard, and - the real draw - rare bottles reserved exclusively for members that never reach the public market. There are also Mini ME.GA. courses and exclusive events. It is, in practice, one of the tightest allocation circles in Italian sparkling wine.

In a region whose biggest names are built on volume and convention, Gatta is one of the few voices arguing that the interesting sparkling wine in Lombardy is happening outside the appellation by choice, not by location.