Casa Belfi, All About the Vibes

Maurizio Donadi is a quiet man, softly spoken and gentle in his manor. He came out of his house to greet us when he heard his dog beginning to bark, he gently whispered something to the dog and it immediately settled down, he then offered us shy smile through his wild man beard. This was my first taste of the peace and calm that the small winery of Casa Belfi is soaked in. The air is still; everything seems in perfect harmony around the small shop area that doubles as a tasting room and the winery round the back of the building.

Without losing any time, Maurizio took us round the back of the winery to show us his most prized possessions, his amphorae. He has two huge terracotta jars above ground for his Prosecco and a series of smaller buried clay amphorae for the still wines. Carefully placed around the top of the amphorae are small stones with positive messages written on them by various visitors. Maurizio explains that positivity, like sound, travel faster and further through water so these stones are sending messages to the water present in grapes and therefor the wine. Maurizio defiantly told us that “people sneer at this practise as it has no scientific basis but if I feel something helps the wine, it doesn’t really matter if it does or not because it’s definitely not harming it”. As you will have gathered from this, Casa Belfi are devout practitioners of biodynamic farming, following every word of Rudolf Steiner’s teachings religiously. Another more unusual practice that struck me as interesting is Maurizio’s wind instruments. He has beautiful musical instruments hand made for him by his neighbour who is a music therapist. He then places them at strategic points in the vineyards so that when the wind blows, they emit musical sounds for the vines and the grapes to enjoy.

Terracotta jars, home of Colfondo Anfora

 Maurizio lead us into the tasting room where we met his two parakeets who happily chirped along with our conversation as the evening progressed. Maurizio disappeared from the room for a moment to reappear with a magnum under his arm, three bottles in one hand and a plate of his home made sopressa in the other. The one thing I most enjoyed in my time in Treviso was the gargantuan amount of homemade sopressa I consumed at every home, bar, osteria and winery I visited. Sopressa is local salami made with spices and a lot of lard. Everybody makes it, and everybody has their twist on the tradition. Maurizio’s twist is tiny amounts of cinnamon added to the recipe.  Delicious!

We started with Casa Belfi’s latest venture, Colfondo Anfora, an amphora aged Prosecco bottled only in magnum. 2017 is their third vintage and it’s brilliant! The wine has very high acidity and sharp minerality but the amphora ageing gives it real structure and the earthy flavours it imparts really hold the wine up. Having tried each of the three vintages, I can say that this has only got better and I’m very excited to try future vintages. I have also tucked some away to see if and how it ages as I believe there is plenty of potential there.

The regular Prosecco Colfondo came next as a palate cleanser. Probably Casa Belfi’s most famous product, the Colfondo is readily available in most natural wine places in the UK, it’s a great summer evening drink, fresh, clean, crisp but enough body to hold up with food. Colfondo is a local term meaning ‘with the bottom’ to be understood as ‘wine with sediment’ which is a badge of pride amongst Prosecco producers.

By this point, the evening had become more of a drink with friends than a tasting. With healthy refills and flowing conversation aplenty, Maurizio poured us the next wine, his Raboso Colfondo. This is a gentle sparkling red made from the local grape variety Raboso. After fifteen-day whole bunch carbonic maceration, it is left in contact with the lees for six months in tank. Then like Casa Belfi’s other two sparkling wines, undergoes secondary fermentation in the bottle. It’s soft, very fruity and whilst there is a little grip there from the notoriously tannic Raboso grape, the elegance is striking. I can confirm that this is a great sunny London park drink!

Unfortunately, the timing of our visit meant that we missed the last of the still white and were too early for the new batch, but Maurizio did have a bottle of the Rosso Anfora. A blend of Raboso, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon aged in amphora and an excellent way to finish what turned out to be quite a boozy winery visit. The Rosso is a very well structured wine with all the Raboso fruit and tannin up front and a generous helping of Cab’ Franc pepper and spice on the finish, the whole thing is elegantly wrapped up in clay earthy notes.

We finished off the last of the sopressa, cleared the winery out of all its magnums and hit the road. Casa Belfi Prosecco was one of the very first natural wines I had, long before I was even aware of the phenomenon or even aware of biodynamic farming. I just remember thinking it had a little something more than other Prosecco I’d had at the time. I put it down to good quality and didn’t think of it again until years later when I got more interested in the movement. Having now witnessed the environment in which the wine is made, I fully understand what that little extra something was, it was Maurizio Donadi’s passionate touch, his unique approach to winemaking and his belief in healthy wine.