Guerino Pescara, the winemaker who wanted “Carta bianca” on wines and took it
L’AQUILA – The historically most widespread interpretation of Montepulciano in the Peligna Valley, far from what is expected today, for a fresh, acidic and low-tannic product, easy to drink. The birth of the new wines of Guerino Pescara starts from this ambition and from the need to have free hands to experiment in the cellar with everything that crosses his mind. Born in 1985, winemaker of important companies such as Ciavolich, in his Pratola Peligna (L’Aquila) he began the vinification of that half hectare of the family’s Trebbiano and Montepulciano vineyard to show off his creativity and called the wines just like the one he was looking for, “Carta bianca”.
“The vinification of montepulciano in Valle Peligna differs greatly, in terms of taste and organoleptic profile, from that produced on the coast”, he observed during a tasting evening organized at the Art Cafè in L’Aquila. “The idea was to produce a fresher wine, with a much lighter tannin that could fully express the Peligna agricultural ecosystem”.
But the experiments are different and the most interesting is certainly the one that arises from the brewers’ curiosity about the approach to refermentation: a Cerasuolo base refermented in the bottle with cooked must and beer yeasts. A drinkable, sparkling product, with a color that looks like an orange, which the winemaker exhibits upside down with a cheerful expression like that of a child in front of his toy.
Not the only refermented: another, born after four years of trials, is with Trebbiano and Malvasia grapes and according to Guerino represents the vision of the Peligno classic method, where however despite the ratios (70 per cent Trebbiano and 30 Malvasia) the sweetness of the second grape variety and the unmistakable hints of the champenoise bubbles are just a memory. “I did a long search for styles and tastes, tasting many Franciacorta, Trento and Champagne products,” he said, “that we could never have done, simply because our grapes have different characteristics. This is a bubbly typically an expression of the centre-south!”.
The evening also allowed us to taste an ancestral wine, for which, as the oenologist recalled, it is possible to pick the ripe grapes, thus giving the possibility to find all the scents in the bottle, and a preview of a tank test of the still white , a blend of Trebbiano and Malvasia.
In the labels, never to forget that desire for freedom that Guerino chases in his cellar, the recurring element of a bird that first looks out of the cage, then flies away and leaves its feathers as its trace. “In winemaking trials I feel like a child who wants to explore,” he admitted. (m.sig.)
