All wines
Cà del Vént
Pensiero Brut Pas Operé VSQ
2018
4.0
Region
Italy › Lombardia › Vino
Type
white · traditional · sparkling · brut
Grapes
Chardonnay
Alcohol
12.5%
Volume
750 mL
Dosage
1 g/L
Disgorged
2023-01-12
On lees
46 months (3.8 years)
Available at
- Wine Bureau#S4548
Tasting Notes(2)
4.0
Yellow apple, citrus, a lot of cider, sea. Racy acidity, sharp and delicate at the same time. Chalk and limestone on the finish, with a touch of bubble gum sneaking in. Despite the cutting edge it doesn't read as painful - sharp without being abrasive. Lacks a bit of volume for what I'd want from a 46-month Pas Operé Blanc de Blancs, but still a good bottle.
About
Pensiero is Cà del Vént's Blanc de Blancs - 100% Chardonnay from the Campiani di Cellatica parcel on the Brescian hillside, vinified in old oak with spontaneous malolactic fermentation over seven months in barrel before going to bottle. From there, forty-six months on the lees prior to disgorgement on 12 January 2023.
The "Pas Operé" designation is the house's purist gesture: at disgorgement, instead of topping up with the conventional liqueur d'expedition (still wine plus sugar), the bottles are dosed with wine drawn from the same batch. No sugar, no foreign component. The result is a Blanc de Blancs that reads like an undosed pas dosé but with a touch more body from the in-batch top-up. No cold stabilisation, no fining, no filtration.
The wine sits in the same VSQ basket as the rest of the estate's sparklings - bottled outside the Franciacorta DOCG by choice, on the producer's own terms. Not Franciacorta. Not pretending to be.
