Col Tamarie

Alberto of Col Tamarie working at the press

Col Tamarie makes just one wine, and it could hardly be further from industrial Prosecco. From the highest hill of the Prosecco DOC, ringed entirely by woods, Alberto Dalle Crode and Marta craft a hand-tended, bottle-refermented col fondo that tastes of the place rather than the category.

Backstory

Alberto Dalle Crode sowed the first seeds of the project in 2003 and produced his first wine in 2013. He and Marta run the farm together as a true family operation.

The Region

The vineyards sit in the Veneto, on the highest hill of the Prosecco DOC at around 450 meters, completely surrounded by forest. The soils are limestone and rocky material of morainic origin.

Vineyards and Farming

Alberto and Marta tend about 4.5 hectares of south and southeast-facing vines. Farming is biodynamic, and the plants are cared for with homeopathy. The wine is a white field blend of Glera, Bianchetta, Boschera, Graparol, Verdiso and Perera.

Winemaking

The single wine is made in the old col fondo, or sur lie, method, with a refermentation in bottle. It ferments spontaneously with native yeasts and is left unfined and unfiltered, with no added sulfites.

The Wines

That lone bottling is a cloudy, savory, traditional Prosecco col fondo, the only wine the family makes and a pure expression of their hilltop site.

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Natural Winemakers

Heydi Bonanini practices heroic viticulture on terraced cliffs above Riomaggiore, producing Cinque Terre whites and the legendary Sciacchetra from rescued indigenous varieties.
Weingut Niklas is a family-run Alto Adige estate in Kaltern where Dieter Solva farms 7 hectares of calcareous mountain soils to produce precise, aromatic whites and structured Lagrein reds that have carried the family name for over 50 years.
A molecular biology graduate turned sparkling-wine cult figure, Michael Cruse founded Cruse Wine Co. in Petaluma to make fresh, serious, distinctly Californian wine, including old-vine Valdiguie.