Quattrocento 40 lune Extra Brut L09/25-B53

Quattrocento is Nicola Gatta's 40 lune bottling: forty lunar cycles on the lees, about forty months by the producer's own equation. On the producer's current list it sits one step above Cuvée Nature at thirty moons, in a range that runs to Molenér at ninety.

The producer describes a blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Nero, the latter vinified as a white, made with spontaneous fermentation, indigenous yeasts and no added sulphites. The estate's US importer Ambrosi puts the blend at 70% Chardonnay and 30% Pinot Nero. Ambrosi also reports vineyards on the limestone hills of Gussago and Cellatica, between 400 and 650 m, farmed on biodynamic principles, and about 10% of perpetual-reserve wine aged four to five years in the base. It says the first fermentation takes place in oak, and it reads the name, four hundred, as a reference to the altitude of the vineyards.

Gussago and Cellatica lie in the Franciacorta zone, but Gatta works outside the denomination, so the wine is sold as Vino Spumante.

Gatta's back labels carry each release's own figures. On this release the sugar and sulphur dioxide numbers are filled in by hand: 3 g/l, and under 40 mg/l of total sulphur dioxide. An earlier release in magnum, disgorged in January 2020, showed the same 3 g/l.