Antica Fratta

It was Franco Ziliani, owner of the Guido Berlucchi cellars, who fell in love and purchased this historic villa in a state of semi-abandonment, after a few bright years between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. At the time, the Knight of the Grand Cross Luigi Rossetti, a rich wine merchant in the area, renovated an ancient farmhouse from the 1500s, making it his private residence, enlarging the characteristic cellars dug into the rock of the hill on which the villa rests, using them both as winemaking rooms, both as a place for refining and storing wine. With the passing of the Knight, the property was re-purchased several times until 1979, when, in fact, Ziliani read the extraordinary potential of this place, with a view to the production of great sparkling wines. The vineyards of Antica Fratta extend for approximately 35 hectares around the Villa, in Monticelli Brusati, one of the most suitable areas of Franciacorta and are cultivated with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. All the winery's production takes place around the villa, the beating heart of the activity. It all begins with the manual selection and harvesting of the best bunches and continues with soft pressing and low-temperature fermentation of the grapes, to keep their aromatic characteristics intact. According to the Classic Method, we proceed with the assembly, the secondary fermentation and the aging on the yeasts: the wines of Antica Fratta follow the philosophy of being as faithful as possible to the Franciacorta territory. For this reason the particular cellars of Antica Fratta then play a fundamental role: in fact there are real underground tunnels, dug into the rock, which can accommodate as many as 800,000 bottles of sparkling wine and for this very reason, since the time of Cavaliere Rossetti, you earn the nickname (in dialect) of "Cantinù", meaning large cellar. Here the production rests for long years at a constant temperature of around 11° and gives life to authentic masterpieces with bubbles, a very high expression of the quality of Franciacorta.