The Wine: Camaleonte Pet-Nat 2021
Siemàn Camaleonte Pet-Nat is a sparkling white wine made from a blend of Garganega, Pinot Nero, and Tai Rosso made according to the ancestral method. Spontaneous fermentation in stainless steel, minimal added sulfites. I like this wine because it's an interesting blend of white and red varieties; it's lightly fizzy, with flowers and citrus on the nose. Serve well-chilled!
The Winery: Siemàn
Siemàn, meaning "six hands" in Venetian dialect, is run by 3 brothers, Marco, Daniele, and Andrea Filippini. Though from completely different professional paths, they came together over their mutual love for viticulture and their homeland. In the Berici Hills of Veneto, together they farm their 4 hectares organically and biodynamically, using predominantly native grapes to the region. With minimal intervention in the cellar, they strive to make sure each wine is distinctly terroir-driven. They follow their minimal intervention farming/winemaking process by working as much as possible on cleanliness, waiting, listening, and respecting the natural rhythm of the process itself. The wines rest in barrels, concrete, and steel in order to enhance the characteristics of the grapes from which they originate. The wines are native yeast fermented, unfined, unfiltered, with total S02 never exceeding 15mg/l.
The Region: Veneto
Veneto is one of the most important wine regions of Italy, located in the North-Eastern corner of the Italian peninsula. It borders with Trentino-Alto Adige (north), Friuli-Venezia Giulia (north-east), Emilia-Romagna (south), and Lombardy (west).
The capital of Veneto is Venice, which is also its most populous city, followed by Verona, Padua, Vicenza, Treviso, and Rovigo. The east coast of Lake Garda, the biggest Italian lake, is part of Veneto and so is the tract of Alpine foothills called Venetian Prealps.
Veneto is the leading Italian region for the quantity of wine produced – even though wine-producing regions such as Piedmont, Tuscany, Lombardy, Puglia, and Sicily all have bigger territories.
Some of its most famous wines are Amarone della Valpolicella, Valpolicella, Soave, and of course Prosecco. Other less known but equally delicious wines are Recioto della Valpolicella, Recioto di Gambellara, Raboso del Piave, and Bardolino.
Veneto’s main characteristic is perhaps the great variety of wine types produced, obtained mostly from indigenous grape varietals – Corvina, Glera, and Garganega being the most common.
This is due as much to its specific geography and climate as it is to rather peculiar winemaking techniques such as the grape drying technique employed to make Amarone della Valpolicella, Veneto’s most famous red wine.