Ernesto Cattel and Costadilà, Bottoms Up!
Col Fondo Prosecco! Prosecco with the bottom! I touched on this sexy subject in the Casa Belfi article a few months ago. Sadly however, last week, the wine world lost not only a cheerful force of nature, but also one of the most important men in the production and popularisation of Col Fondo Prosecco: Ernesto Cattel, the owner and wine maker at Costadilà. So what better way to remember him than to get smashed on his wines and chat a bit about his story and the my favourite Prosecco production method known as Col Fondo.
You know Prosecco, that drink your aunt has at parties when she’s showing off or with peach juice in it when she’s amongst friends discussing the intricacies of Val’s divorce and how amazing that Charming Tatum is. Yeah, that one, that’s made with the Charmat method where the fermented still base wine is chucked into huge vats with yeast added to undergo its secondary fermentation (the bubbly bit). Despite my gentle scorn, I have found that some Charmat Prosecco can be delicious! But what really interests me is the far less common, colloquially named Col Fondo method. This is where, a bit like Champagne, the secondary fermentation takes place in the bottle which, unlike Champagne, is never disgorged, so the yeas is left to die and sink down to the bottom of the bottle, hence the name: Prosecco with the bottom. When you open a bottle of Col Fondo Prosecco, you are effectively disgorging it. Before cracking the bottle open, I like to hold it upside down and swirl it around a bit letting the yeast sediment mingle once more with wine giving it extra flavour and texture… then off comes the crown cap, POP FROTH and FIZZ, a delightfully funky glass is poured.
In 2006, Ernesto Cattel opened Costadilà in the middle of nowhere over Conegliano in the Veneto region of Italy. The plan was to make excellent Prosecco with low intervention, local yeasts and very traditional methods. Whilst nearly nobody was making Col Fondo in 2006 and even fewer producers before that it’s believed that Col Fondo was by far the most common method before 1910 when Eugène Charmat patented his autoclave, the huge vats currently used in the Charmat method for the secondary fermentation. Special shout out to Federico Martinotti for actually coming up with the Charmat method in 1895! So on cracked Ernesto! With his small plots of land he started producing an amazingly good Prosecco Col Fond called 280 slm. His vines are 280 metres Sul Livello del Mare (above sea level). 280 slm was the first of Ernesto’s Prosecco I tried and it blew me away. Like the first time I tried Casa Belfi, 280 slm was unique in its style, its flavour and its expression of itself. It’s light with very low alcohol, the tiny soft bubbles dance around the tongue before gracefully disappearing and leaving space for the delicate tart apple notes and slightly punchier pear and quince feeling. It is very difficult to stop at one bottle of 280 slm.
I was lucky enough to meet Ernesto a couple of times through a mutual friend. Balding and grey, he always sported an excellent moustache and a very cheeky grin. By the first time I met him, Ernesto had acquired seven hectares and had started producing a further three wines called 330 slm and 450 slm (guess how high those vineyards are!) and a red, which I sadly never got to try. Ernesto was always an incredibly generous man so my memory of the bottles is as cloudy as the booze within but I do remember feeling high emotion trying each of the wines as they are all very unique but all convey Ernesto’s joie de vivre.
You know Prosecco, that drink your aunt has at parties when she’s showing off or with peach juice in it when she’s amongst friends discussing the intricacies of Val’s divorce and how amazing that Charming Tatum is. Yeah, that one, that’s made with the Charmat method where the fermented still base wine is chucked into huge vats with yeast added to undergo its secondary fermentation (the bubbly bit). Despite my gentle scorn, I have found that some Charmat Prosecco can be delicious! But what really interests me is the far less common, colloquially named Col Fondo method. This is where, a bit like Champagne, the secondary fermentation takes place in the bottle which, unlike Champagne, is never disgorged, so the yeas is left to die and sink down to the bottom of the bottle, hence the name: Prosecco with the bottom. When you open a bottle of Col Fondo Prosecco, you are effectively disgorging it. Before cracking the bottle open, I like to hold it upside down and swirl it around a bit letting the yeast sediment mingle once more with wine giving it extra flavour and texture… then off comes the crown cap, POP FROTH and FIZZ, a delightfully funky glass is poured.
In 2006, Ernesto Cattel opened Costadilà in the middle of nowhere over Conegliano in the Veneto region of Italy. The plan was to make excellent Prosecco with low intervention, local yeasts and very traditional methods. Whilst nearly nobody was making Col Fondo in 2006 and even fewer producers before that it’s believed that Col Fondo was by far the most common method before 1910 when Eugène Charmat patented his autoclave, the huge vats currently used in the Charmat method for the secondary fermentation. Special shout out to Federico Martinotti for actually coming up with the Charmat method in 1895! So on cracked Ernesto! With his small plots of land he started producing an amazingly good Prosecco Col Fond called 280 slm. His vines are 280 metres Sul Livello del Mare (above sea level). 280 slm was the first of Ernesto’s Prosecco I tried and it blew me away. Like the first time I tried Casa Belfi, 280 slm was unique in its style, its flavour and its expression of itself. It’s light with very low alcohol, the tiny soft bubbles dance around the tongue before gracefully disappearing and leaving space for the delicate tart apple notes and slightly punchier pear and quince feeling. It is very difficult to stop at one bottle of 280 slm.
I was lucky enough to meet Ernesto a couple of times through a mutual friend. Balding and grey, he always sported an excellent moustache and a very cheeky grin. By the first time I met him, Ernesto had acquired seven hectares and had started producing a further three wines called 330 slm and 450 slm (guess how high those vineyards are!) and a red, which I sadly never got to try. Ernesto was always an incredibly generous man so my memory of the bottles is as cloudy as the booze within but I do remember feeling high emotion trying each of the wines as they are all very unique but all convey Ernesto’s joie de vivre.
The last time I saw Ernesto was at Tutto and Gergovie’s spring tasting, I had foolishly been swallowing every other measure so was beginning to feel ever so slightly hazy. As wine started running low and producers started packing up, I wandered over to where the crowd was, the Costadilà stall. Ernesto was stood behind his table holding court; nowhere near running out, he was popping bottles, pouring healthy measures and even sometimes just handing full bottles to people to sort themselves out. Chatting in Italian and English to nobody and everybody at once, his moustache was dancing and his eyes were shining with that ever-present cheeky glint. As his excited gaze made its way to my empty glass, he extended a murky un-labelled bottle towards me, I mumbled, “Ernesto, I’m drunk…” he immediately interrupted me with an invaluable nugget of rural Italian wisdom, words to live by: “Drink, it will make you feel better!”
Ricominciamo dal fondo, passando nel torbido per vedere chiaro.
Start at the bottom, work through the murk to see the clear.
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